Finding Fifty
by sketchnurse
Summary: She isn't the one to neutralize him, to balance him out, to calm him down enough for family and stability. Because if you add this man and this woman together, you do not end up with zero." BB, past present, and future.
1. Chapter 1

You see two people, and you think, they belong together.

But it never happens.

Skimming the surface, dancing the dangerous dance of too close and yet too far, two figures meet in the distance, coming together for an instant just long enough to leave an impression.

And in the instant of that instant, the few seconds of what would become long, long lives, a memory imprints itself.

_Brennan's mind isn't as fuzzy as Booth's, but she can just barely taste the flavour of the man beneath the tequila in both of their mouths. She can still taste it though. And a strange feeling overcomes her, and she gets the sense that she'll be remembering this taste for the rest of her life._

In a twist of fate, the man and woman meet again, and the memory repeats itself, six years later, without the wanton, alcohol-fueled passion of the first instant, but with the slow-built plethora of emotions they two figures had managed to associate with the other, feel about the other, feel with the other.

_And in Booth's kiss, in the short instant that Brennan's control and outward nature were lost to the things he made her feel, she could sense the desperation in the kiss, she could tell, from the rapid progression from discussion to action, that he was trying to gamble for her, and she knew, her mind processing it in lightning speed, that he would lose. She pushed him away, not letting her emotions get the best of her. There was a decision, a sacrifice for her to make._

And between the two moments, a love develops, evolves, makes itself known, and nearly destroys both the man and the woman.

_Tears find their way out of Brennan's eyes and onto her face, and she sees the same thing happen to him. She cannot stop it. She can only stop it from happening later, because they aren't able to be what he thought they would be._

Because this isn't the type of love that makes you feel warm and fuzzy after seeing, this isn't the type of love that could come to fruition at any moment, this isn't the type of love that is sweet and superficial and yet _enough._

_Temperance watches two teenagers dancing, their faces close together, lit red and blue and green by the rotating lights, and she thinks that maybe there is something between them. She thinks she can see the connection that has eluded her all of her life. She thinks she sees young love, and though she has never read any scientific literature that says such a thing ever lasts and means anything good for either party, for a little while, she thinks she may want something like it. But then reality catches up with her and she realizes that love has never been something for a person like her. Love is not for scientists._

This is the type of love that makes you ache with the knowledge that that _one_ right moment could never come and the vast expanse of potential of it could never be realized.

This is the type of love that is half sadness, half infatuation.

_Brennan watches his face, as he tries to tell her that they can try, that he knew that she was the one for him, all those years ago, and it makes her ache, and she wonders why she is hurting so badly when she is supposed to be helping him. She cannot help it. _I love him, _she thinks, and for once, the notion does not get dismissed. _I think I love him, and I _know_ that nothing good will come of it. If this is love, how long will it last? How does he know how long it will last? _She doesn't even think to tell him that it will all work out, because that is just another thing she thinks she cannot know._

A love that leaves you cold at the end of the day when you realize that their beds are still empty but for one person, and maybe there won't be a good day in amongst all of the bad that they've convinced themselves that this love is worth.

Because the man and the woman cannot see beyond their own doubts.

_"I am not a gambler. I am a scientist. I can't change. I don' know how."_

_"But I've got to move on. I've got to find someone who will love me in thirty or forty or fifty years."_

And they are so hopelessly tied to what they have with each other that the prospect of losing that over something so selfish isn't even an option.

For tonight, when the man climbs into his bed, and sees nothing beside him but more sheets and mattress and pillows, he thinks of her, and back upon the huge gamble he had taken, and wishes that she wasn't so—

But he can't tell himself reasons why she didn't give them a chance, because he doesn't _really _know why she told him no.

_"You… you thought you were protecting me but you're the one who needs protecting." Booth's world comes crashing down still further, and he thinks he knows what she's saying, but then the part of him that is buzzing, soaked in adrenalin from the risk, the gamble he had taken, it cannot listen to this. It cannot accept the refusal. _

_"From what?" he asks, and does he know why she pushed him away? Yes and no. He doesn't want to. He doesn't want to need to._

_"From _me_.__" Brennan answers, and it sounds sad, so sad, but it seems sadder for him, because he's been practicing for this game, and now it seems he's lost it before it began._

He doesn't know that she believed, with everything that she was at that moment, that she _didn't _know how to love, didn't know how to _learn_ to love, didn't know how to learn to be anything other than what she was.

A scientist.

But he can't live like this.

_Booth parks his car and walks, after he dropped Brennan off at her apartment, their eyes both still red. The walk takes him down to a bar, and the bar takes him to a glass of whiskey, and the glass takes him into another one. But then he calls a cab. Because he knows what alcohol does to people with sorrow, and he doesn't want to turn out like his father. Like his brother could have been. But the pain… it's still raw. He doesn't want to think about what tomorrow will feel like. He can barely think about today._

Because he needs more of her.

Because this love isn't one that is sweet and fleeting.

It goes deeper than the surface, diving beneath the crust of what he knows as himself and into the parts that lay hidden.

It saturates everything that he is now, because love does that, when it is real, when it is penetrating and powerful, when the other person is so much of what you need that you can't breathe when you think about losing them.

_A crushing, throbbing, painful feeling assaults Booth as he hears the words on the cellphone. Cam sits across from him, unaware of what a few simple sentences have done to him. He struggles for air, but lets the breath go, finally. They will find Hodgins. They will find his Bones. They have to. So rarely do they fail._

And unbeknownst to him, she lies awake on that same night, and thinks of him, despite the fact that she tells herself that dwelling on what you cannot change, on what she cannot change, does nothing good for her.

And her love for him, though she cannot say with conviction that that is what it _is_, goes just as far into her person.

_Brennan's usual routine of falling into her silken sheets, the tug-of-war between her rational side and the side that was hopelessly tied to the man continuing until she gives up and lets the emotions flood over her, fueling her fantasies, her erotic dreams filled with a bittersweet vein of what she cannot have, her usual routine cannot happen, because her mind reels, taking in everything that has happened and everything that still never will, and sleep never comes. She wakes up in the morning, and phones in to work. She will not come in today. She will lie in bed, reading, and tomorrow she will spend eighteen hours in Limbo._

And that's what makes this story so full of what love doesn't want to be, and yet ultimately must be.

That's why this story is full of sadness, and pain, and doubts and lies and denials.

_"Please don't look so sad." she says to him, and anyone who had been listening to their moment slipping past would have had their heartbroken. But her heart cannot break, because her heart pumps blood to the rest of her body, and it cannot shatter. It is not made of bone. But the weight of what she has done does make a pain appear in her chest. And she feels like she's being crushed from the inside out._

Because the thing that they have, the thing that they're both so afraid of, is more powerful than anything they've ever encountered.

It can kill for the other, it can die for the other, and it can destroy itself in the course of keeping all that is held precious safe.

_"I can't think of anything I wouldn't do to help him." she tells the other man, and something tells her that these are among the truest non-factual words she has ever spoken._

Because on the surface, in the place that the man and the woman inhabit when they're thinking, desperate thoughts have to be pushed back down, because this love _can_ destroy them, from the outside, from the inside, and they don't know just how deep this goes.

Not yet.

* * *

You see two people, and you think, they belong together.

But they won't let it happen.

Because the man, despite his mostly-reliable gastrointestinal tract, can never find the_ right_ moment to take what she is so desperate to be able to give.

_He looks at her, for the hundredth, thousandth, millionth time, and he still feels like this isn't the right moment, even though she's looking at him the way he likes to think he looks at her, and the moment slips by, and their normal conversation resumes, as they both take a sip of beer. He stores the moment in his mind, as he has done many times before, so he can look back and remember happiness later. _We'll find our moment, _he thinks, and he holds onto that thought as well._

So he gambles.

And she loses.

_It's unbearable, to see him looking this way. It's unbearable, to think that she caused this. He should have weighed the outcomes. He should have looked at this rationally. If he had looked at this rationally, then they wouldn't have this thing between them now. He shouldn't have listened to the young man. She _hates _psychology._

But late at night, she is still thinking.

Because once upon a time, when she was a very small girl, love had been the ultimate goal.

The ultimate truth, the ultimate judge, the ultimate motive for everything.

_"And they both lived happily ever after." Her father closes the book, and hoists her further onto his lap. _

_"Did you like the story, Tempe? Do you want to hear another one?" She nods, and he picks up the pile of fairytales. She points at one, her favourite._

_"'The Frog Prince', again? What about 'The Princess and the Pea'?" She shakes her head, and reaches for the book she wants._

_"'The Princess and the Pea' doesn't make any sense, Daddy. How could she feel the pea through so many mattresses?" The man chuckles, and squeezes his daughter tight. _

_"Honey, 'The Frog Prince' doesn't make any sense either. How can people turn into frogs? Fairytales aren't supposed to make sense. There's magic in them."_

_"'The Frog Prince' makes sense when it doesn't make sense." the little girl answers, matter-of-fact. "And I like the ending better." she adds, as an afterthought. _

_"Sweetheart, all of the endings are the same. The princess falls in love with the prince and they live happily ever after. That's the way fairytales work."_

_"I don't care, Daddy, I like this one better." _

_Her father just grins, and takes the book from her, opening it. "Once upon a time, there lived a princess…"_

And then love, of the most pure, innocent and unadulterated kind, the love that was supposed to be unconditional and everlasting, left her.

All these years later, she's still not sure she's ready to let love back into her life.

_"I don't get it, Temperance! We've been together for more than a year!" Daniel's voice doesn't cut through her as he ntended it to. She regards him coldly, and he looks still more incredulous. _

_"How can you not understand that I love you and want to be with you for the rest of my life?" She sighs. Here ends what had been a long and satisfying relationship. At first, Daniel had been quite complacent with her views and rules on sexual relationships, but apparently he had grown too close to her. At least, that's what the ring she had found in the bottom of his drawer seemed to say. _

_"Daniel, you cannot know that you will want to be with me for the rest of your life! And I have told you, many times, my views on marriage, so what evidence could you have possibly had to suggest that I would want to be part of such an outdated practice?"_

_He doesn't say anything else to her, just walks out of the apartment. The next day, she wakes to find him and his things gone. She feels something, in the part of her mind that she found was best to ignore, and so she does so. Perhaps now that she and Daniel had ended their semi-casual relationship, she can ask the attractive barista at the university coffee shop if he would like to engage in sexual intercourse with her. She had been recognizing several signs of physical attraction to her from him for weeks now. She cleans up the mess in the kitchen from the night before, and gets dressed to go to work. He had loved her, apparently. She doesn't understand where that had come from._

But she wants to be.

And she needs to be.

Because at this point in time, with a love so powerful and omnipresent, these two people, tiny pinpricks in the fabric that is existence, these two people, who had met by chance or perhaps not chance, whether fate had anything to do with it (because he believes in it, and she doesn't), these two people are now linked, forever, in every way, because they had been able to see the truth of each other, and were dazzled by it.

Are still dazzled by it.

_"The world scares you, so you wrap it up neatly in bonds of reason, education, and proof. All riddles are solvable to you except for one" Avalon's assertions are starting to scare her, as much as she doesn't want to admit it, in their frightening accuracy._

_"Yes, the riddle of how you knew where your sister was buried." She tries to change the subject, because she has never liked personal conversations, and this one is no exception. There is something about this woman…_

_"No. The riddle you can't solve is how somebody could love you."_

_ She laughs. It is plain to see why people are attracted to her._

_"Well, I'm beautiful and very intelligent." But how someone could _love_ her? That, she certainly cannot fathom. But is it so easy to tell, that she has so little confidence in her ability to be loved?_

_"The answer to the question that you're afraid to say out loud is…" Avalon draws a card "Yes," and she puts it down "He knows the truth of you, yet he is dazzled by that truth." Something stops in her mind, but she tries as hard as she can not to let it show on her face. It is impossible. This woman doesn't have any idea what she is talking about. These are just cards, guesswork, ideas based on nothing. And yet…_

If they could see the truth of what they feel for each other, well.

Then this story wouldn't need to be told.

Because then, you would see these two people, and think, they belong together.

And in every movement that they make, in every look, in every thought, breath, touch, smile, word, in everything thing that they ever made happen in this world, you would see it happen.


	2. Chapter 2

You see two people, and you think, they belong together.

And then you think their moment finally comes.

Years have now blossomed between these two people, and despite the fact that they had spent a portion of these years hating each other, their relationship has come full circle.

_They find themselves drifting still closer together, under the cloak of tequila and sexual attraction brought into the light. He speaks. "I don't know. I just feel like, um, this is going somewhere..."_

_ She speaks too, her face closing the space between them. Brennan can feel the liquor on his breath, but she doesn't care. She feels something in the moment, much like the something she has felt in sexual encounters before, but this feels more charged, full of another thing she has never felt before. Perhaps she and he are more sexually compatible. She doesn't think that perhaps, there is something special between her and this man. Such a notion is ridiculous. _

_"Why did you feel this is going somewhere?"_

_He can feel the air between them getting thicker, along with the buzz in his head, and yet, there is a clear part of his mind that's going haywire, being so close to her. He can't do anything to stop it. _

_"I just - I feel like I'm gonna kiss you…"_

_And then there's no more space between them, no more air being breathed onto the other, because they're sharing the same space, the same air. Everything in them gets diverted into this kiss, and Booth thinks that this is possibly the best thing in the world. Brennan doesn't think in such unquantifiable statements. She just knows that she is enjoying it very, very much. They break off, and the space between them fills with air again._

_"Wow." Booth says, and it's a loaded wow, because there's no way he could have possibly said everything he felt about that kiss without taking years and years. So he settles for that one syllable._

_And then she says. "We are not spending the night together." _

_His tequila confused mind doesn't understand what she's saying, and when it does, it doesn't understand _why_ she's saying it. There was something in that kiss. Complete and endless potential._

_"Of course we are. Why?"_

_ And she answers.  
"Tequila." says the voice that will later drive him crazy, first with annoyance, then with love, but he doesn't know this yet. All that he knows now is the best kiss he's had since… he can't think of a time; a damn good kiss is walking away from him, into the taxi. He chases after it, trying to keep himself steady. _

_"Hey, ho, ho. Hold the cab. Hold the cab. Hey!" The window rolls down when he knocks on it, and he sees her face again, and wishes that it was a few minutes ago, when they were kissing and weren't confused, and she wasn't separated from him by a car door._

_"So, you're afraid when I look at you in the morning, I'll have regrets?" he asks, because that's the reason most women won't sleep with him, after getting drunk because he had to fire them. But she only smiles, as the cab begins to pull away._

_"That would never happen."_

Except it hasn't.

_They stop their walk, and suddenly their mocking of Sweets' ignorant conclusions turns to something serious, and she can feel the change in the mood, in the way his face loses its sparkle, its playfulness. Somewhere, she knows where this might be going. A place she's been hoping it will, but has never dared to dream aloud. It's going somewhere she can't let it, because when she does dream about it, it never ends well for him. She breaks his heart, even though that's not physically possible. He hurts, and she hurts, and they leave each other. Every time. They cannot be together without destroying the other. She __knows__ it must be impossible. She is not built for monogamy._

_"I'm the gambler. I believe in giving this a chance." She knows what he means almost instantly. He moves closer, and she starts to get scared. This cannot happen. He cannot know that she wants this as much as he does, because then he'll try to make it come to pass. "Look, I wanna give this a shot."_

_"You mean us?" she asks, because she knows that's the only possible thing he could be talking about. And it is, because he nods. "No." she tells him, even though that's the last thing she wants to do. It's the first thing she needs to do. _

_"The FBI won't let us work together as a couple—" and she says this because it's the excuse he used before, and maybe it'll work this time, maybe—_

_"Don't do that. That is no reason why we can't..." he tells her, tearing up her shield and throwing it back into her face, and now there's no reason, no reason at all._

_He cuts himself off and he kisses her. And she lets herself kiss him back for one blissful moment. But then—_

_"No. No" She can't do this. Not to him, not to herself._

Because it can't.

Because he's in love with her, to the point that he was ready to risk everything for the possibility that love could grow into something that wouldn't destroy them.

And she's in love with him.

But the woman isn't willing to risk everything on the small chance that they _can_ do it right this time.

And that's where it all goes wrong.

He wasn't supposed to gamble with more than he had.

He wasn't supposed to put her heart on the line too.

And therein lays the mistake.

Because the man can only think in opposites when it comes to love.

His desperate, foolish desire, his secret dream, now brought into the light; perhaps she loved him as he loved her?

But she didn't.

Doesn't.

And so, he think that maybe he was giving her too much credit, that maybe he hadn't changed her in the slightest, that she would never understand love, its insurmountable power, its terrible beauty.

Its ability to destroy _everything_.

_She watches the clouds go by, sitting on the curb, outside her apartment building. The couple in the place next to hers are fighting again, and she found that she had been quite unable to work productively with their screaming so close to her. A book lies dormant on her lap, as she contemplates the reasoning behind the union of her neighbours. They are obviously not compatible in any way, as indicated by the constant disagreements and fights, and she is fairly certain that the man does not satisfy the woman sexually, as she sees the woman drive off with other men in the middle of the day while he's at work. So why stay together at all? Surely there cannot be anything holding them together.  
Two children come to sit next to her, and she recognizes them as the offspring of the couple currently arguing. She offers them a piece of toffee, and they accept, and they sit in silence together, as the sun comes out, and the day moves on. She thinks she understands now. The children obviously are holding the unhappy family together. She feels, for a reason she cannot quite explain, quite discontent with this. _

And his faith, the faith that he had in their potential to be perfect and so much better than the best that they are now, the faith that he had in that next step, the faith that rivaled his faith in God, it was lost.

Is lost.

But after the second time, after the kiss that was too short and too long at the same time, in that it shouldn't have happened at all, the woman had things dragged out into the open that she was trying to keep hidden.

It had been a time, perhaps a year ago, perhaps more, perhaps less, that she had looked at him and realized that it hurt.

A hurt that scared her in more ways than she would ever anticipate, because the man _is_ right, she does _not _know the insurmountable power, the terrible beauty of love.

_He sits across from her, smiling his charm smile at her, as he always does, as he always has, and suddenly she thinks she sees what other people have seen so many times before, in other people, the thing of myth, of legend. Love. She thinks. Then she dismisses it, a ridiculous notion, because there is, of course, no such thing as love. It must have been an unusual effect of the alcohol, because there's nothing special about the way her partner is looking at her, or the way she's reacting to it. And yet… she thinks about the possibility of a long term relationship with him later that night, and finds the idea to be strangely pleasurable. And in the morning, she wakes up and realizes that she has no idea what to do with the newfound feelings towards Seeley Booth. She isn't made for long-term relationships. She ruins everything, and everything leaves her. Booth cannot know about this. No one can._

But that doesn't mean she hasn't fallen into it.

When they walk off together, as they always have, as they never have before, with familiarity, with clumsiness which could have only come from an unusual occurrence, the woman thinks through the tears.

And when she goes home, alone, as she has for longer than she can remember, drawing herself a bath, slipping into her nightclothes before lying herself down on her bed, she calms herself down.

_The bathroom leaks its scent into the rest of the apartment, filling her bedroom with the smell of jasmine. Her skin feels smooth, and clean, but she can't seem to get rid of the memory of Booth's lips against hers. The feeling of the kiss seems to have left itself on her skin, so she resigns herself to going to bed. She had been planning to write more for her next book, but something seems wrong about it, like everyone had been right about it being a replacement life for her, and she admits that perhaps it was. The tears threaten to emerge again, but she pushes them down. She takes a deep breath. "No." she tells herself, and lies down on the silken sheets, trying to keep her respirations steady. "No." and she tries to push the very idea of him out of her world._

Compartmentalizes.

Sets aside the fear that had met her when his lips had pressed against hers, desperate, grasping at nothing (what was nothing, what he now thinks is nothing), when he gambled, a dangerous old habit; sets aside the wealth of emotions that had been building up since he 'died', since he almost died, since he had first told her that he 'loved' her.

And almost instantly, her method of coping with everything fails, and it all comes crashing down on her again, almost with the same intensity as in the actual instant, but this time, there are other things she is remembering, a nervous hand placed on top of his when he needed comfort, something she was still learning how to give, fingers under her chin when she needed to know that there was more than one kind of family, nights at the diner, later than most people liked to eat their dinner, after long and hard hours bringing justice and truth into the country the man loves.

She remembers, and knows.

_"He's your dad, and he loves you." Booth tells her, and she doesn't believe him, because the last time she checked (she didn't actually physically check, it's just an expression) people who loved other people didn't run off to continue their life of crime, leaving their children to fend for themselves. Brennan looks at him, and holds his gaze, and suddenly the rest of the world disappears (not really, it's still there, it just feels like it), and she's buzzing with something she's never felt before, and he seems to be in focus more than before. _

_"You know, I'm just…I'm just one of those people who doesn't get to be in a family. That's—" He cuts her off by putting his finger under her chin, lifting it up, and the buzzing increases, and she can see every line in his face, every eyelash on his lids. _

_"Listen, Bones, hey. There's more than one kind of family…" And she doesn't really know what that means yet, but she wants to know, and she feels like they're going to kiss, for some stupid, irrational, totally not backed up by facts reason, and then their stare is interrupted by Zack tapping on the diner window. _

And she also knows that she cannot change.

She cannot be _that_ woman.

Because the woman is the woman, and the man is the man, and in every sense possible, they are not meant to be.

Not on the outside.

Not on the surface.

Not even when it is plain to almost anyone that every moment of every day they live now, the man and the woman yearn for each other.

_"Does that couple always order the same thing?" Nina, the newest waitress at the Royal Diner asks the older, more seasoned waitress beside her. The woman looks over at the aforementioned pair, and smiles. _

_"They're not a couple." she tells Nina, rolling her eyes. "She's some fancy scientist up at that Jeffersonian Institute or whatever, and he's an FBI agent. Sometimes you'll catch them talking about their latest murder case. But they're not together, Lord knows why not. He'll look at her like a lost puppy, and she'll look right back, and nothing ever happens. Ever. I don't know what crazy rules the Feds have going about office romances, but whatever's keeping those two apart has to be pretty damn strong." Nina picks up the tray, and brings it into the kitchen. Her Raymond used to look at her like that. She looks up at the ceiling, wishes it were the sky, and sends a smile to her husband up in Heaven._

Because they are different, different people, and she cannot learn to be stable; she cannot learn to know that thirty, forty, fifty years from now, what she feels will still be as raw and painful, unpredictable and uncontrollable, powerful and life-changing.

And she cannot understand how he _does_ know.

And she couldn't see him live with the reality that they seem to be loving on two different planes.

A wise man had once said that they were far from opposites.

_"Your manuscript?" Dr. Gordon Wyatt asks, reaching into his bag and pulling it out. _

_ "Yes, indeed, and may I say, Dr. Sweets," he continues, looking at the young psychologist with a smile. "That I think this is probably the best work I have ever read on the dynamics of opposite personality types working towards a common cause." He chuckles a silent chuckle, and waits for Sweets to ask him about _his _caveat. _

_"Okay, now _I'm_ hearing a caveat." Sweets says, looking just a petite bit nervous. He should be. This is his work. _

_"It's a small one." the psychiatrist answers, knowing that it is in fact, not a small caveat. "It's just that Brennan and Booth aren't in any way opposites." _

_"Wow, small?" He laughs, the dismayed laugh of the misled. At least he doesn't know just how inaccurate his book is. Yet. "What is that—British understatement?"_

_"Well, yes. He's a man, she's a woman. He's instinctual, she's empirical." He expects Sweets to say something alone the lines of…_

_"Opposites." But Wyatt has an answer ready, with a smile in his tone, pleasantness trying to soak its way into the conversation. _

_"Superficial ephemera, Dr. Sweets."_

So, if the man and the woman both think that love only comes from two people completing each other, filling in the holes, then they are destined for disappointment.

Because they are not yin and yang in the workplace, they are two people who both share the same core.

And _this_ is why they are soul mates; it is because there is no other person in the world who could ever understand them as deeply as they understand each other.

_"Creep!" She can hear the girl's shout clearly from across the gymnasium, but Temperance just keeps walking. Her peers don't seem to understand her love of science. They seem to think that one cannot appreciate life while also appreciating death. Today, even the thought of a lunch with Mr. Buxley doesn't bring a smile to her face. It's her mother's birthday today, the first since their disappearance.  
She wonders if her janitor friend will understand the pain of a lost family member. She's talked briefly about her reasons for living in the town, but she's never told anyone in detail about everything. Social workers, therapists, child psychologists, they all seem to say the same things. Ask the same things. And Temperance dislikes answering personal questions. She dislikes anyone who brings the pain of loss back into the open, because she's worked long and hard to bury it.  
Besides, she's not giving the social workers anything, because they can't help her. Nothing she says will get her out of the situation she's in. She represses the tears that threaten to come out as she thinks of the night awaiting her at the foster house. She hopes she was properly nourished today, otherwise she might lose control of the dishes again. And Temperance dislikes losing control of anything. She finds comfort in science. The hour and a half spent doing lab work in class brings her a peace she rarely finds anywhere else. _

But she doesn't know this

Despite her keen observational skills, she had never seen it before.

Love.

Between a man and a woman.

True love.

Love of insurmountable power, of terrible beauty.

And because of this, she had thought that she was the only one slowly losing her control.

_ They're at the Anok exhibit together, and they're not supposed to be down there yet. Brennan wonders if this is yet another way to expand her frontal lobe. She feels like she's doing something forbidden, here with Booth. She likes it, much more than she likes giving speeches or talking to stuffy hoity-toits. _

_"So it only took 3,000 years for someone to hear her. You know, I'll tell you what. If I was Egypt, I'd throw you a party, too." Booth says, and she smiles at him, at their conversation, at how close they've become over the years. Well, not really for that last thing. But it's all there in her smile, and she trusts him, so, so much. _

_"I have to speak. I hate these things." she tells him, and he finds himself surprised._

_"What are you talking about, Bones? You're great at these things. Listen, you changed history. How many people can say that?" Booth's body starts drifting of its own accord, and though he isn't trying to move closer to her, he does. He isn't completely conscious of their decreasing distance, but his senses start to get sharper. His heart begins to beat faster, and he starts to find it harder to breath. And she's moving closer to him, and they're dressed in fancy clothes, and yet they both feel like all of that doesn't mean anything in this moment. _

_"You can. Every arrest you make changes history. You make the world safer." And she rarely says anything untrue, and he knows this, and feels proud. Proud of himself, and proud of her. This is what they do, they change the world. They catch killers. They bring justice. _

_"With your help. So, Andrew...I thought you were going to take him to this thing. That's what he told me." Booth's beyond happy that Hacker wasn't the one to see his Bones, looking so radiant and incredible, in her dress, in her success. But of course, he doesn't tell her this. He can't tell her, because what's his is his to keep secret, and she can't know. Not yet. She isn't ready. One day, she will be, but not yet._

_"I was, yes, but...you and I - this was our case and I guess...what goes on between us, that should just be ours. Isn't that what you said?" She still feels guilt, over what had happened, because she really doesn't know, sometimes, what's secret and what can be shared with the rest of the world. She's so confused, sometimes, with the illogical rules society had decided to burden itself with. But he helps her through that. With Booth, she rarely feels the complete awkwardness she used to. _

_"Yeah." he says, and by now, they're so close he begins to think that maybe this is the moment, that maybe she actually is ready, and she sure as hell looks like she wants to kiss him, though that may just be wishful thinking, but he doesn't care anymore. What's theirs is theirs, and it looks like there's going to be a lot more between them soon. He looks at her, her eyes, her lips, and he's going to—_

_They hear the titterings of Angela, Hodgins, Cam, Sweets and Daisy. The distance between them lengthens again, and he thinks he might have seen a hint of regret on her face. Then again, it might just have been a trick of the light. Her wanting to kiss him might just have been a trick of the light._

_ "Come on, you two." says Angela, from the top of the stairs. "The Ambassador is about to speak."_

_The others begin to leave, and while the two below don't know it, they're all secretly thinking that maybe they just interrupted something. Something they've all been waiting for. Something that needs to happen as soon as possible. _

_She adjusts his tie, though it's as straight as ever, and he puts a stray not-so-stray piece of hair behind her shoulder. It's a moment, not so unlike the one they had just shared. And it ends, too._

_"Thanks."_

_And together, they walk back up to the party._

And now, she has learned that the man wants her to be_ that_ woman.

The woman is not _that_ woman.

She is exceptional, yes, beautiful, unique, daring, exciting, and yes, even capable of great love, but the woman is not _that_ woman.

She isn't the one to neutralize him, to balance him out, to calm him down enough for family and stability.

Because if you add this man and this woman together, you do not end up with zero.

They are not counterparts, they do not equal each other out, they do not fit together in every single way.

And she had never felt the need to.

But perhaps he does.

And that's what scares her, about what they share.

Because the younger man was right.

And she knows (thinks) that she cannot give him what he (she) thinks he needs.

She's scared, that she wouldn't be able to do it, to be perfect for him, never let him down, never run away when the going gets rough (tough?), never hide anything from him ever, be content to sit on the side while he risks his life for her.

Because the man, he wants to be the _man_, masculine and powerful and protecting, in control of where their lives went, because he is the man, and the man just _knew_.

And the woman knows that he can never know what she has been hiding, because he would dare to dream again, and it would all come falling down.

And she wouldn't be allowed to pick him back up.

She doesn't want to throw herself into his arms, nor does she want to laugh him off and call his notions of love ridiculous; what she wants to do is run away and think for a while, think until she comes up with a solution that won't tear her entire world apart.

One that will leave the metaphor for all of the emotions she feels towards this intact.

Because she _wants _to learn.

The woman wants to _know_ love that is transcendent, and eternal, and she thinks that she just might be starting to.

But she's not ready.

Because _the woman_ is not transcendent and eternal.

There are certain things that humans cannot grasp, and one of these thing is eternity, true eternity, because we cannot envision large numbers, we cannot see an infinite amount of years laid out before us.

Eternity doesn't seem like something one can feel.

And if love is eternal, then she can never truly feel it.

And yet, she feels something stronger and more powerful than anything she has felt before, and this feeling comes from the man.

She isn't ready.

But she's planning to be ready, one day.

Because she heard the conviction, the absolute truth, when he told her about the people who had been together for thirty, forty, fifty years, and she admits now that she cannot deal with the thought of not having him in her life three, four, five decades away from now.

She wants to believe in the staying power of true love.

But she sees no reason to have such faith in something that cannot be measured.

She doesn't know, if it is worth it, to love.

_They are still standing together, in her office, and she looks at Nakamura, as he talks about his sister. She wonders if Russ had ever felt like anything like he does towards her. And if he ever did, why he was able to leave her. _

_"Objectively speaking," she tells him, aware of what she is about to say and what it could have meant for her, if she had ever truly known it "It would indicate a, an irrefutable desire to connect. A deep and abiding love." She has no problem telling him about love, about the caring between family members and friends. But she still does not understand what the man had been implying earlier, about her being lucky to have Booth. She doesn't understand the type of love she will know so intensely soon._

_"I cannot imagine never talking to her again." Nakamura tells her, and she remembers the feeling of not being able to speak to her own family, and knows the agony he will be experiencing soon. When reality sets in, and he has to live with it._

_"I myself have no one in my life whom I talk to that much. Outside of work, I mean." She pauses, wondering if she should tell him what she had been thinking for half her life. What she tells herself, every time she gets too close to someone. What she has been telling herself about Booth, and everything she feels towards him. "Perhaps that is good." she finishes, and if one listened closely enough, they could detect a note of sadness, of regret. They could, if they were skilled, sense the life denied underneath all of her degrees and accomplishments. Perhaps they could even see the young woman whose life had been turned upside-down._

_"How so?" he asks her, as if he cannot imagine a life without love even more so than a day without a phone call from Sachi. _

_"I can see how much pain you're in." she answers, and she can, she really can. She knows the feeling, and remembers a time, a few years ago, when she had to look upon the remains of one of her family members. It was then, too, that she thought perhaps it was better to live without companionship. Nakamura looks down, and she wishes, for a second, that she hadn't brought any of this up. She dislikes causing pain, even if she cannot help it sometimes. _

_"Is it worth it?" Brennan asks of him, and he still does not answer, but brings his head back up, and frowns. _

_"To have your own happiness so contingent upon another human being?" _

_ He finally answers her question. "If I was willing to give up my life for Sachi… why would I not be willing to risk my happiness for her" And something resonates within her, aches, even, and she knows, without a doubt, that she would be willing to give her life for Booth, as well as her happiness. And she also knows that it is too late to tell herself that she cannot care so much for him, because it seems to be nearly impossible not to. _This seems to be the closest I've ever been to love,_ she thinks, and this thought frightens her immensely._

And so the woman tells him no, because the only thing that would hurt more than losing him is seeing him hurt because of what she couldn't live up to.

She doesn't want to be responsible for anymore of his pain.

So she gives him this one last heartbreak, and hopes that he doesn't have to be crushed by the weight of a fallen dream again.

Because the weight of dream realized and broken is far heavier than the weight of one never materialized.


	3. Chapter 3

**First of all, thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed the first two chapters. It always makes my day to see someone enjoying my work. Second, this is a large, large project. I will try to update as quickly as possible, and it will definitely be finished before the season's end, but unfortunately, new chapters won't be coming as quickly as I would like them to. There is much more to come with this fic, but enjoy this chapter!**

You see two people, and you think, they belong together.

But their moments pass, and nothing is left of what could have been.

And the woman doesn't know of the man's pain, because she doesn't know how to think like him.

And the man doesn't know of the woman's pain, because he doesn't know how not to think like himself.

In the short instant, just another short instant in her life, she was ready to take what he wanted to give to her.

_His lips are on hers and she's kissing him back, not passionately, not opening up completely like she wants to, but this feels right, so incredibly right that it almost feels wrong. And that's when she realizes that it is. _

For one short instant.

Because reality set itself back in, and everything that she had ever given herself as an excuse not to try to love the man came flooding out of her.

_She cannot open herself to his kiss, because she is still guarding herself. And she needs to. But she also needs to guard _him_, against the wrong that lives inside of her. She cannot open up. She cannot let him in. Doing so would expose him to something that would mar his goodness, and she cannot let that happen. She pushes him away. "No." she says aloud, and it's also what she tells herself. You are not allowed to have this. "No." she says again, and she experiences the sensation of her tear ducts producing fluid, and it's all wrong, none of this was supposed to happen…_

And her heart broke, spilling tears.

And of course, that isn't physiologically correct, because the heart pumps blood and tears don't come from the cardiovascular system, but…

She loves him so, so much.

(That's what it is, it's love; it's love, even if she can't prove it through experimentation; it's love, in its purest, most potent form)

And this is one reason why the woman can't have the man:

She can't love him like he loves her.

"_Why? Why?" Booth asks her, and she can see the same desperation in his voice that was in his kiss. She breaks, and her eyes water, turning red, transforming her face, and she cannot control it, cannot let herself be calm and collected. This is everything she's wanted, and tried to prevent, coming to light, so quickly, so hard to process._

"_You-you thought you were protecting me, but you're the one who needs protecting."_

"_Protecting from what?" She sees that he doesn't understand, and hurries to remedy this. It hurts her, in some unexplainable way, to admit this to him. _

"_From me! I—" Her voice catches, and she tries to bring herself back together, but it only works partially. "I don't have your kind of open heart." she tells him, and this time her tone is the one to have desperation in it. She's desperate to make him understand that being with her would only mean disappointment. And if there's anything Booth doesn't deserve, it's disappointment. _

"_Just give it a chance…that's all I'm asking…" And he almost sounds reasonable, and again, she almost gives in. But what she feels for him is so strong it breaks through the temptation to have a fairytale ending, and she sticks with her decision. _

"_No, you said it yourself; the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome." It had always been one of her favourite quotes, from one of her idols, Albert Einstein. It was fitting, that she would use a scientist against him. It was fitting that she would once again use his words against him. But it's not against him. It's for his benefit, that she's denying him what he thinks he wants. He'll be better off, without her burdening him as a disappointing lover. She hasn't met a person who hasn't lost something from having known her. _

"_Well, then let's go for a different outcome here, alright?" He sounds so much like the Booth that she knows, and yet, so much more than that man. She sees his passion, mixed in with everything else he seems to be feeling, but she cannot give him this. Her refusal will be a better gift, in the future. "Let's just - hear me out, alright? You know when you talk to older couples who, you know, have been in love for thirty or forty or _fifty_ years, alright, it's always the guy who says "I knew." I knew. Right from the beginning." Her chest squeezes further still, as she thinks about thirty, or forty, or fifty years in the future, without him. He will leave. Everyone leaves. Everyone abandons someone, everyone dies. Such is life. Such must be love._

"_Your evidence is anecdotal." she says to him, trying hard not to tell him that her feelings for him, no matter how intense, no matter how closely resembling love, cannot guarantee him any kind of happiness. And that's what she wants. She wants him to be happy. And she _will_ sacrifice her own._

"_I'm that guy. Bones, I'm that guy. I know." _I know too, _she wants to say, but she doesn't, not really, and she never wants to lie to him. Ever._

"_I- I am not a gambler; I'm a scientist." Never before has she ever wanted to not be a scientist so much. She wants to be the person who can love him, and know that she will love him for a long time. But she can't. It's not in her nature. She cannot know anything without concrete proof. And there is none for her, in this situation. "I can't change." she tells him, and the tears are in her voice. She wants to change. She wants to know how to change. But— "I don't know how. I don't know how." She believes this with everything she is. Because no one has ever given her evidence otherwise. "Please don't look so sad." she asks of him, and she knows that it must be as hard for him as it is for her. _

That's why she pushed him away, that's why she said no to him; to everything she had never (and ever) known he wanted.

But she needs him.

As a friend.

Because that's all he can be.

That's all he can be, if he doesn't want to find himself broken someday, and the last thing she wants is to find him broken.

Because she knows just how broken feels.

"_You're useless!" the man screams at Temperance, and she wills herself not to cry. Crying is useless as well, and if there's one thing she's learned since she started living with Alexander and Tammy, it's that being double useless gets double the punishment._

"_I'm sorry." she tells him, and she's dismayed to find her voice cracking. There is no reason for her voice to crack. She shouldn't let emotions affect her like this, because it obviously leads to trouble. Why can't she connect the dots? Why can't she learn? _

"_I'm sorry, 'what'?" His voice finds its way through all of her defenses, and a single tear makes its way out into the open. _

"_I'm sorry, _Father_." she whispers, and wishes, harder than she's ever wished before, that she wasn't seventeen and without a family. She wishes harder than she's ever wished before that she could live alone, learning and discovering, not trying to make her foster father supper. _

"_Do it again." he commands, and she ignores the angry red burn running down the side of her arm, and turns the stove on again._

He gambled, with his heart, and unknowingly, with hers.

And like the time he remembered in the office, when he remembered with the woman, and the younger man, like in their first instant, he lost.

And he decides to get help.

Get over his problem.

And we find yet another problem.

Because when junkies can't find their fix, they like to grab whatever is closest to what they need.

And the man takes another woman, and this woman has all of the marks of the first one, dark hair, bright eyes, slightly socially awkward, smart as hell.

"_So, tell me about, your work, Catherine." Booth smiles at his date, and he tries to make it genuine, he really does, and he guesses it showed through, because she smiles sadly at him. _

"_Is there something on your mind, Seeley?" _Don't call me Seeley_, he thinks, but grins and bears it. He hasn't been called Seeley by someone he hadn't known closely for a very long time. He hasn't been out with a woman, actually out on a real live date, with an unfamiliar face, in even longer. He wonders again, just how desperate he is to appear normal and functional for her. _

"_No." he tells her, and is saved by the waiter, bringing their steaming plates of food. And he looks at the pasta, which isn't meatloaf, minus the egg, and sighs, hoping she doesn't notice._

_The date ends forty-five minutes later, and she tells him that she'll give him a call sometime. She had a nice time. And he hopes that she never does. This isn't working. He doesn't know why he expected it would._

_Even though they've laughed together, shared a few surface level stories, it isn't enough for him. But he won't be telling Bones that it isn't._

But she isn't the right woman.

Because he's only the right man for one.

And only one woman has a story that he's fallen in love with.

And this man, what he needs to realize, to remember, to remind himself, to tell the woman, is that he isn't looking for _love_.

He's looking for her.

This man, he says that right when he met her, he _knew_.

Somewhere in his heart, where the emotions and irrationality and chaos lie, he knew that this woman would become so wound into the fabric of his being that he would rather die than lose her.

_And he feels the shot being fired, even before the bullet leaves the gun, and he leaps in front of it, because he can't let it reach the other half of his world and destroy it._

_He catches the full force of the shot in his chest, and falls to the ground, but it's okay, because he's on the ground, and she isn't, and that's all that matters, that he protected her and she's safe. Even death would be better than living without her, and if he goes to Heaven, after all he's done, protecting his country, then he can still watch over her there, and his world will still be intact. He vaguely registers the sound of another shot fired. He can hear her, even through all of the blood loss, but she sounds far away, and he begins to slip faster._

"_Booth, you're going to be fine. I'm right here. God. You're gonna do this. You're gonna be fine. You're going to make this." He wants to believe that, he wants to live, to protect her, to be with her, because he cannot imagine an existence without his partner. He doesn't think of how much she will hurt later, if he dies. He only thinks that he has saved her. Perhaps he is not as selfless as he thinks. _

"_Come on! Come on! Booth! You're gonna make it! COME ON! COME ON! BOOTH COME ON! Come on come on come on. You're gonna make this, come on. Oh god." He can sense other people around him, but all he sees is Bones' face, looking more scared than he's ever seen it. If there's one thing he wanted to see before he died… _

"_You're gonna do this. Come on! COME ON! Come on Booth! It's gonna be fine, come on Booth." And he begins to fade, and his vision fails, turning the world black. He's been here before, being shot, and every time, he wonders where he's going to wake up. Heaven or Earth?_

"_Come on Booth no. No, come on Booth... COME ON BOOTH!" Her voice is distant, patchy. And then…_

And yet, he almost does lose her.

Because he doesn't know what she does.

The man doesn't know how the woman really feels, why she started to cry, when he asked her for a chance, for an opportunity for thirty, forty, _fifty_ years.

When she knew she was close to losing everything she had finally allowed herself to trust.

She remembers their first kiss, the first of three, three completely different circumstances, three different opportunities, and the way that every time, he tasted _exactly_ the same.

_It's not like there's anything strange, or life changing going on in this situation. Just a puckish prosecutor making her exchange a kiss with her partner for a family Christmas. It's not as if there are any complicated emotions involved in it, anyway. Sure, she knows somewhere that Booth is very attached to her, but as a friend and partner only. Of course, there is an obvious attraction between them, but they never act on it. Not since that one night. She refuses to think of the tequila-fuelled kiss of a few years ago. They had been different, different people back then, and there is only platonic affection between them now. At least, that's what she assumed with him. As much as she tried to deny it to Angela, she had to put the overwhelming attraction she had to him out of her head every time she got up to work with him. And she would have to put it away now._

"_Congratulations. I hear you have a suspect in the Santa slaying." Caroline's voice brings her out of her thoughts. When had she become such a self-reflective daydreamer, anyways?_

"_Yeah. Well, it looks like the Easter Bunny has nothing to worry about." Booth answers the question, and she clears her head, bringing her attention back to Caroline. _

"_Did you talk to the judge about the trailer" she asks her._

"_Yes, I did. What about," the prosecutor indicates Booth with a wave of her hand "Your end"_

_Brennan points towards the mistletoe. This kiss will be short and simple. Five steamboats, no need for any complications, and she'll get a nice trailer for her father and their family afterwards. Open and shut. So why does Booth look so reluctant?_

"_Well, look at that. Mistletoe." She hears Booth start to sputter beside her. This has to be hard for him. He likes to be professional, and this certainly doesn't fall under the category of regulation FBI procedure. "You take a step to your right and you'll be right under the cute little sprig."_

_Brennan is aware of Caroline watching them, and she sees the other woman raise an eyebrow. She's waiting for her to hold up her end of the deal. Booth tries to protest again, but unfortunately, his unintelligible mumblings aren't much of an argument. She wants her family to have a good Christmas. If this is the way to get it, then…_

_She leans in, grabbing the lapels of Booth's jacket. The kiss starts off like a casual meeting of two sets of lips, but she can't help it. Apparently, neither can he. For five short blissful steamboats, she feels his lips on hers for the second time, and something stirs in her. He tastes the same as that night, minus the tequila, and even the mint gum in her mouth can't mask the flavour. She wants to pull him closer, push him against the wall, get Caroline out of the room and… Right. Caroline. She separates herself from Booth, and he looks more affected that she had expected. Well, good. She had certainly enjoyed the kiss, and from his participation, he seemed to have enjoyed it as well. Not that that meant anything. No, they were partners. Couldn't be in a relationship. There were FBI regulations, and more importantly, the line. The line that was supposed to be keeping her safe. She hadn't seen any evidence that told her she was any safer not having sex with him, but if that was how he felt… And there she went again, losing focus. It was Booth, obviously, and that annoying sexual tension between them. She tries to regain her composure, but comes off sounding a little frazzled. _

"_Was that enough steamboats?" she asks of Caroline, and it appears she's not the only one who got a little more out of that kiss than expected. _

"_Plenty. A whole flotilla." the older woman answers, sounding a little frazzled herself._

_Had the kiss been that passionate? It had certainly felt like it, but then again, her feelings could rarely be trusted when it came to Booth. He had this effect on her, an effect that mixed everything up inside her head when he was close to her. It was very, very irritating. _

"_I don't know what that means, but, um, Merry Christmas." Her partner talks, and he sounds a little out of it too. She supposes it wasn't fair to spring the kiss on him, but her father… Her father wanted a family Christmas. And she was determined to give it to him._

"_It was like – kissing my brother." Brennan tells Caroline, despite the fact that it was a complete lie. Unless, of course, she harboured incestuous thoughts towards Russ. Which she most certainly did not. She prided herself on having sexual tastes within the societal norms. _

"_You sure must like your brother." Caroline says, still sounding shocked._

"_She does." Booth answers for her quickly. _

"_I do." Brennan confirms, feeling the awkwardness of this conversation creep up on her. This obviously hadn't been a good idea. _

"_She does." Booth says again. Awkward, awkward, very awkward, as Angela would say. Speaking of Angela, there was no way she was going to tell her best friend about this. Past experiences told her that telling Angela would be a very, very bad idea. _

"_The trailer's all arranged. You're good to go, Cherie. Merry Christmas." Brennan catches the look on Caroline's face as she leaves. The kiss couldn't have been that shocking, right? Surely the woman had seen two people kiss before. Or perhaps she hadn't. Maybe that was why she was acting like she had seen the single most intense kiss _ever_. _

_The two of them are still standing next to each other, having trouble looking each other in the eye. Not that anything had happened, of course. This had been a stupid, stupid idea. What had made her think she could keep her attraction under control? She must have really let it loose on that kiss. Why else would everyone be acting so strangely?_

"_I'm sure she feels really foolish right now." she says, trying to break the silence. _

"_Yeah." he answers, and it seems she hasn't done anything to ease the awkward. They look at each other quickly, and Brennan feels irrationally embarrassed. What was it about that man that got her acting so out of character? It was just a kiss. A good kiss, but a kiss, nonetheless. "Well, hey. I, um, I really should - I should get back and – see if, uh, the forensic guy has got – anything yet on Moussa's clothes—" Booth continues. Yes, definitely very awkward. But why?_

"_That's a good idea. Yeah, I got – stuff – to do too. Yeah." Why can't she unjumble her thoughts? It's wasn't like they had been making out of the couch for a half hour. It had been a simple, seconds long kiss, with minimal tongue action. Well, maybe not so minimal. Or maybe so. Her brain is mixing up this kiss with the one from four year ago, and she can't tell one apart from the other. He had tasted the same. She has a sudden urge to see if he still tastes the same. She represses it. What the hell was with her?_

"_Yeah." Her partner still sounds shell-shocked. _Don't kiss him again_, she tells herself. _Just act casual, and let him get out of here.

"_That - for – with bones." Bones. Stuff with Bones. 'Cause that's what she does, when she goes to work, not kissing her partner, and certainly not entertaining fantasies about him afterwards. She's a professional. Pro-fess-ional._

_He's chewing gum, and she can't quite register why this is wrong. _

"_I – I understand completely." He stops chewing for a second, and takes the gum out of his mouth, looking more awkward than ever. "Thanks for the gum." She realizes what had happened, as he puts it back in and leaves. Apparently there _had_ been tongue. _

She remembers, in the cover of night, when she is bare and alone and yearning for what would destroy them, what she denied him, because of what she knew she couldn't be.

She remembers small lines in what would appear to be perfect and supple at first glace meeting their counterparts on the other side of the equation, x+y, man + woman, life + death, light + darkness.

And she remembers the feel of him, even after excuses are said, taxis drive away, lives part still further, only to be brought together again, both angry, both needing something.

It wasn't meant to be anything then.

_They're walking together, her and Booth, and Brennan's thinking at the speed of light, as usual. "Are you seeing anyone?" she asks him, and he looks at her, like he's surprised at her question for some reason. Temperance Brennan wants to know something, she asks it. There isn't any other logical way to go about these things._

"_Wow. Right to the point there, huh, Bones" Booth says, and there's something in his voice, in his tone, perhaps, that she finds extremely attractive. He's assertive, an alpha male, and she likes that in a man. It's all evolution, biology. "Uh, casually but she doesn't like my hours. You?"_

_She answers his question, with a bit more of a stammer than she's used to. Then again, she's not used to social situations. This entire experience is new to her. "Well, uh, a physicist has been asking me out so I was thinking of saying yes." The physicist in question is moderately attractive, rather wealthy, and is said, in the academic circle, to be quite a gentleman and very good in bed. She really has been thinking of saying yes. What reason would there be to say no? She wants sex, needs it, actually. The physicist is a good place to get it. _

"_Well, I'd ask you out if I could." he tells her, slowing a little bit. She doesn't think anything of his statement, because of course, he'd ask her out. Of course, he'd want to have sexual intercourse with her, because she's extremely attractive, and he looks like he might be hiding something under that suit of his. They'd be good together, in bed, sweaty and breathless and tangled in limbs and sheets._

"_Why can't you?" Brennan asks him, and it's a pretty damn good question. Because she sure as hell wants him to; he's looking better and better by the second._

"_Well, FBI rules, again. No fraternizing with other agents or consultants." These rules sound stupid, because if sex is sex, then it shouldn't get in the way of professionalism. It should just be sex. But organizations, they like to tie up loose ends, avoid lawsuits. _

"_That's too bad." she tells him, and it really, really is. _

"_Glad you think so." he replies, and they continue their walk. _

Not yet.

It would have been wrong, in that moment of the moment, for the man to try to convince the woman that she would learn to live a different life than the one she had created for herself.

_It's Christmas morning, and Temperance Brennan isn't expecting anything. She isn't expecting anything to be downstairs, under a tree, waiting for her to open it, because her parents are gone, and she and Russ were alone. But that was fine, because they were dealing on their own. She did all of the household things, he worked and made them money, and everything worked out. They would be fine until they got back. She doesn't know that just a floor below her, fifteen presents are laid out under a Christmas tree, decorated with lights and tinsel and the old family ornaments. She doesn't know that Russ is cooking breakfast for her. _

_When she climbs down the stairs, and sees the lights, smells the pancakes and coffee, hears the sound of that old vinyl of Bing Cosby playing, she… she rushes downstairs, nearly tripping over the pajamas that are too long for her, and flies into the kitchen, looking for them. Because they're here, for Christmas, they've come back, just for her. Everything is as it was._

_  
Except it's not, because that's not her father flipping pancakes in the pan, it's her brother, and her mother isn't sitting on the sofa, sipping coffee from her favourite festive mug. They're not here. They're not home._

"_Russ!" she says, because she's still not quite convinced one way or another. "Russ, what—?"_

_And he looks at her, and she knows, somehow, there's something in the look he gives her that tells her… that's it's just them. As usual. As shouldn't be usual._

_A tear slides down her face, and she doesn't bother to wipe it off._

"_Tempe, I just— I wanted to— what's wrong?" he manages to get out, and hurriedly turns his attention back to the stove, because the pancakes are starting to burn. He turns them off, and looks at her._

"_Why did you do this?" And she's not angry yet, because she's still in shock. Still not completely registering everything. It's Christmas Day, and her parents aren't home. This isn't— this is not how it's supposed to go._

"_I found their presents in their closet last week." he tells her, and looks down. He hasn't done anything wrong. He just wanted to give his little sister something special. But it didn't work. Couldn't have worked, because she's still hanging on to the idea of them coming back._

"_Why did you take them out? Why did you set everything up like this? I thought—"_

"_You thought Mom and Dad were home." he mumbles. Well, shit. "Look, why don't we just open the presents? Even if they aren't here, we can still—"_

"_No!" Temperance yells, and he jumps back a little bit, because he hadn't heard a scream from his little sister in a long time. "No, we can't open them until they get back!"_

"_Tempe, look. They aren't coming back. They've been gone since your birthday! They didn't tell us they were leaving, they just left, it's just us now, we—"_

"_What do you mean, they're not coming back? Do you think they would just leave us? Do you think they could just get up and go, without telling us?"  
"They did! That's what they did, Tempe! Just open the damn presents. They're not coming back."  
"No!" she screams again, and runs up to her room. It's not fair. They were doing fine, they were waiting until their parents got back, what the hell was Russ talking about? She waits by the tree for three days, eating when Russ makes food for her, sleeping on the couch. On the third night, Russ sits down next to her, and hands her a mug of hot chocolate._

"_Tempe…" he begins, and she looks at him through heavy-lidded eyes. _

"_I don't want to hear it, Russ." she says, glaring at him._

"_Tempe, I need to talk to you about something. I've been offered a job."_

"_Why do you need to talk to me about that?" she asks in an angry monotone. This is stupid. Her parents are coming back, she knows it. _

"_It's out West…" _

_And her world collapses a little bit more._

_On the twenty-ninth of December, she moves into the Donahue household._

_On the thirtieth of December, she sits alone in her new room, and begins to think._

_Faith has given her nothing._

_Hope has given her nothing._

_Love has given her nothing._

_Logic and reason and science and empiricism have predicted all of this._

_She knows what to trust now._

_From then on, she knows nothing but the truth, and tries as hard as she can to live without emotion. _

_It works, for the most part._

It would have been wrong, for the man, so confidant and sure in his success, to tell her that he could have been the second half of her whole.

"_What are you talking about, Kelly?" Seeley Booth is cocky and confident in his basketball uniform, fresh from the win of the school team. He stands next to his 'girlfriend' (that's what he tells his Pops, but he knows she's been messing around other guys. He's okay with this. He's messed around with other girls.) _

"_I'm just saying, Seeley, that you can't expect me to clear all my plans for you. You're NOT my boyfriend. We hook up, that's it." He mumbles something about his grandfather, and how he wants to meet her, and all of that other crap. Kelly doesn't fold._

"_I'm going to Alan's party on Saturday, with Tom. I don't care if Grandpa wants to have a family dinner. You're just not that important to me." This should have been a crushing blow, but he's dealt with much worse before. Most of his life, he's heard words (usually coupled with blows) that have stung a lot more. Kelly is nothing. Kelly is a girl he's been screwing, because he can, and she's the only girl he can bring home to his grandfather. _

"_Fine, but don't expect to be getting back into my pants anytime soon." he tells her, and walks off._

"_Fuck you, Seeley." she calls after him. "You're a lousy lay, anyway." He knows she's lying. He's heard the stories about himself; he knows how much of a legend he is on campus. He's heard them, when he makes them come so hard they can't see straight afterwards. He's not worried. He'll find another girl to bang, because that's what he does. That's his life. Sports, parties, girls and his family. He's never needed any of that _love_ garbage. He's seen what it can do. It's stupid, to expect commitment, when they're so young and self-centered. He's content this way. He'll find love later, when he settles down and doesn't carry the weight of his drunken father on his shoulders. Susan Richards is probably free tonight._

Because of course, even though the man professed to be adept at such things, he had no idea what he would be getting into.

"_Shit." Rebecca mutters, looking up at him. 'Shit!" she says again, thrusting the pregnancy test at him. Booth looks at her, fear in his eyes. _

"_That's a— that's a positive, isn't it? Jesus— what do you want to do now? How are we— can we pay for this thing?"_

"_It's not a 'thing', Seeley, it's a fucking baby! A fucking kid! And yeah, how ARE we going to pay for it? You're just barely making enough with the FBI, how the hell— oh, God, why didn't we use a condom?"_

"_Maybe because you said you were on the pill? Look, Becks, it doesn't matter. I'll just— marry me, okay? It'll all be fine. I'll work longer hours, and we can pay for this. Don't worry."  
"Marry you?" she laughs, looking positively mental. "Marry you? Why would I want to do that?"_

"_What? Look, Becks, I want to do right by you. If we're going to have this kid, then I want to do the right thing. We should get married, have a family."_

"_Seeley, we haven't been together for that long, what makes you think I'll just drop everything to be your wife?" She says wife like it's a curse word. In her mind, it is. She's never wanted to be anyone's wife, never. Even when the other girls were playing wedding games, she sat in the corner, making her Barbie a movie star. She doesn't want to be tied down by this. Sure, she's wanted children. But never now, not with him. Especially not like this._

"_I'm a Catholic, Becks; I want to do the right thing! It's a sin to have a child out of wedlock!"_

"_Oh, so you'll make me marry you so your child won't be a bastard? No, Seeley, I won't do it. If this is how you feel about it… I'll have the child, and—"_

"_And what, I'll get to see it three days out of every month? No, if we're having a kid together, I want to be part of its life. I want—"_

"_Can we talk about this later, Seeley? I'm tired, and it's late." He nods in defeat, and leaves the bathroom. That night, for the first time in months, he sleeps in his own bed, in his own apartment. Where the hell had he gone wrong with Rebecca? Admittedly, he hadn't been completely thrilled when he had first heard she might be pregnant, but once he had gotten used to the idea… A family, the proper family he'd never had. And she doesn't want to give it to him. Maybe he's not cut out for this normal life stuff. After all, how many real dads were abused as children, lived with their grandfather, then went and killed people for a living? He shouldn't have let himself dream like that. He should have settled for what he could get. This romance thing, he had thought… he didn't know what he had been thinking. After three good, long relationships and a few more flings, he had thought he was ready, but apparently he wasn't. Apparently he wasn't a guy people could commit to. Apparently he wasn't good enough._

And so, the two had parted ways, leaving behind those deep impressions on the other, and didn't meet until another set of circumstances pushed them together.

_He needs this body identified, or his career's in the toilet. Just a few short months after he's kicked his gambling problem, and another problem come up. It's a messy case, this one. And unfortunately, there's only one woman in town for the job. He knows this, because he's worked with her before. Actually, he almost slept with her, after he fired her for assaulting a federal judge. Yeah, they have a bit of a history. But he needs Dr. Temperance Brennan, forensic anthropologist, woman of a thousand PhDs, because this case, well, they've got nothing on it, just a nasty old body in the middle of a pond. He'll just have to get past the fact that this woman really, really can't stand him. And he's pretty sure he can't stand her either. Not after their last case._

_He calls her office. "Hi, is Dr. Brennan there?"_

_A voice he recognizes answers him. "May I ask who's speaking?" Zach Addy says, sounding as civil and squint-like as ever. _

"_This is Special Agent Seeley Booth, with the FBI." _

"_I'm sorry, Agent Booth, but Dr. Brennan gave me specific instructions never to accept a call from you. Have a pleasant day." He hangs up on Booth, all polite-like, and it just pisses the FBI agent off more. So, Bones d_oes_ harbour some ill feelings towards him. Well, he'll just have to try harder to get a hold of her, because his entire case seems to be riding on her participation. He makes a few more calls, and finds out she's coming home from a trip in Guatemala the next day. He remembers Guatemala, remembers it well. But that's all in the past. He starts to formulate a plan, a plan he's sure will make her quite angry. He'll get her to work this case, and everything will go smoothly. Right, just like last time. He gets a bad feeling in the pit of his gut, and his gut has never lied to him before._

Because that's what this story is about.

Circumstance.

And that's what the woman had been writing about when she had tried to leave behind the fact that she could be losing everything she had come to trust.

_She's sitting, sitting just like she was two hours ago, just like she was six hours ago, just like she was twelve hours ago. And he's still not awake. He's still in a coma, because apparently Seeley Booth and anesthetic do not mix. His tumour is gone, but what if… What if he never wakes up? _No, _she tells herself. _You're not allowed to think like that. Booth will be fine_. But she knows that might not be true. She picks up her laptop for the fifth time in as many hours, and tries to write again. And this time, it begins to work. _

And it had been a long, long journey to that trust.


	4. Chapter 4

**Thanks again to all of the reviews and story favourites and alerts. I've been having a lot of fun with this one, and can't wait to see where it takes Booth and Brennan. **

**Just be warned that there are a few parts in this chapter that are pretty strongly T, though I don't think there's anything strong enough to warrant an M rating.  
**

You see two people, and you think, they belong together.

But there are too many variables, too many things that have and can and will go wrong.

Their journey began again the second time circumstance brought them together.

It would become well-disputed, the exact set of events that set about their odd partnership, but suffice to say that there had been an interception at an airport, as well as blackmail.

" _Look, I'm sorry if I embarrassed you in front of your friends but, next time you should identify yourself before attacking me." she tells the agent, after she had answered a series of very annoying questions. What was supposed to be doing right now? Oh, yeah, getting home to get ready for a drink with Angela. She turns to the man at the door. To top it all off, it seems like she's run into an old friend. Special Agent Seeley Booth, the man who makes her legs turn to gelatin and her brain into a fiery inferno (and yeah, that's all symbolic, metaphorical, romantic mumbo-jimbo. But we won't tell). And she does not like this man. At all. The last time they had seen each other, he had grabbed her arm and she had slapped him in response, before they started yelling at each other. Yeah, fond, _fond_ memories. And yet, he turns her on more than anyone else she's ever met. Neither of those things are conducive to a productive working environment. And yet, he's here. _

"_What are you doing here?" she asks him. _

_He speaks, but not to her. "FBI. Special Agent Seeley Booth, Major Crime Investigation, D.C. Bones identifies bodies for us." Booth tells the agent, gesturing to her. She's Bones, apparently. Like she's forgotten that stupid nickname, from little more than a year ago._

"_Don't call me Bones. And I do more than identify." If he doesn't remember her telling him everything about the girl from the last case, just from her remains, then that's too bad for him. She does more than identify, she defines who people are again, brings life back to the dead. And we're being metaphorical again. Just in case you thought Brennan was some sort of necromancer._

_He holds up on of her books, before sliding it across the table to the other man. "She also writes books." Yeah, _Special_ Agent Seeley Booth, so_ not_ what she meant by more than identify._

_He's heard the horror stories, about other agents working with her after their case together. Apparently all of her pleasant, quirky flirtations had disappeared after their dispute, and her cold, angry, clinical exterior had come to find a home on her surface. He remembers, just barely, what she had been like before everything had gone to hell. If he hadn't known, he wouldn't have been able to tell, not now._

"_Fine. She's all yours." the other agent says, and Booth turns to her. He just has to get through this. Work with her, and the case is done. In and out. Open and shut. _

"_Great. Let's grab your skull and let's vamoose." Well, it's not as easy as just vamoosing, is it? Not with that brilliant brain of hers wondering about ways and means all of the crap that makes his life difficult. She's not submissive, and she hates being anyone's subordinate. She's headstrong, smart as hell, and stubborn as a mule. Pretty much just a pain in the ass to work with. Probably dynamite in bed. Not that he'd know. Not that he'd _want _to know. Nope, there's no unresolved sexual tension here._

"_What! That's it? She's all yours? Why did you stop me?" Brennan asks, and Booth resists the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. He can feel a headache coming on, a big one._

"_Why does it matter? You're free to go. Let's just grab your bags, click, click, clang, clang…"_

"_You set me up." she tells him, and yeah, he's screwed now. "You got a hold for questioning request from the FBI didn't you?" she asks the other agent, and he looks over at Booth. Uh-oh, busted_

"_I love this book" the agent says, handing it back to her._

_Yeah, she's a little pissed now. But Booth can handle it, because he's all that and a tin can. She grabs the book and walks past Booth determinedly, and she lets him hold all of her bags, because if she's doing something for him, he might as well. _

"_Come on." she says, and they both know that this is going to work out very, very badly. She knows it because of reason, of past experience. He just feels that sinking feeling in his gut again. Great._

Clearly, both were used to getting what they wanted.

And of course, that meant that they rarely expected to get anything that they didn't.

Let's change the timeline, to a time not too long ago.

When she had been writing another reality.

Now, it could be argued that she had been doing this for longer than the few short/long days that the man had not been able to flash his charm smile at her, or explain pop culture references, or tell her that he was the one who drove, or tell her to get behind him, because he was the gun, and she was the woman, and he needed to protect her.

_Booth's waiting in his car, waiting for a man. No one puts a hit out on his partner, no one. She may be able to protect herself most of the time, because yeah, she can kick a whole lot of ass, but a gang hit? Temperance Brennan may have survived in third-world countries, but he cannot take any chances. He feels a connection to her, one that he can't explain. It's not just the remnants of their almost affair, but something deeper. He's attached to her, more than he should be. Despite her cold exterior and social awkwardness, he enjoys doing cases with her, spending time at Wong Foo's with her. In short, if she dies, there's going to be one unhappy Booth walking around town._

_He gets out of the car when he sees Ortez, and follows him into the alley. Booth pushes him into a doorway._

"_Are you crazy? This is my neighbourhood." Ortez tells him, but Booth doesn't think for a second that this is crazy. It's what he has to do, to protect his partner. He gets closer to the man, and if it had been any other person, they would have faltered under his harsh gaze. This isn't Booth the nice guy. This is Booth, full of adrenalin, full of anger, full of hate. This is the Booth one would have encountered at war._

"_You put a hit out on my partner?" he asks, but it's not really a question, because he already knows the answer. It's more of a statement, a challenge._

"_She's not FBI." Wrong answer, Buddy. _

_Booth punches him in the face, hard enough to hurt, but not as hard as he wants to. He can't kill this man; he can just scare the shit out of him. Make sure he gets the message. He grabs him by the throat and puts the gun there. _

"_I never said anything about FBI. She's my partner, ese." And if you thought Booth was being threatening before, you should see him now. It's incredibly male, this desire to protect his female partner, and if she were here, she would either be extremely angry at him for needing to protect her, or very, very turned on. But he's not going to tell her, because she doesn't need to know. "And if anything happens to her, I will find you and I will kill you. I won't think twice. Come here, look in my eyes." He's serious, dead serious. He's killed before, he will kill again, and he knows how to hide the body. The barrel of his gun finds its way into Ortez's mouth, and it's cocked and loaded. Yeah, maybe Booth is a little bit crazy now. But this needs to be done. "Look at my face. If anything happens to her, I will kill you. This is between you and me, and nobody sees, nobody knows. You got nothing to prove, understand? You understand?" Of course the man understands, because Booth's trigger finger is the only thing standing between life and death. He's stared down death before, because he's a gang leader, and they deal with stuff like that. But this man, Special Agent Seeley Booth, he means business. And he knows, from his crazy eyes, from the way his body is poised and ready to strike, that he wouldn't hesitate to finish him off. _

"_Yeah." he grunts._

"_Yeah, I thought so. Ok, now if you don't mind, I'll leave first because I have somewhere I have to be." He'll be late for a funeral, but at least he won't have to start planning hers._

_He pulls the gun back, turns to leave, and almost does. But then he turns back to Ortez, and puts the gun on his forehead. He stares at him again, just making sure he still gets the message. He does. Ortez isn't going to mess with this man, and certainly not with his beautiful partner. _

It could be said, and perhaps quite accurately, too, that she had written several novels about this alternate reality.

_It's unusual, the writing of things that aren't true. It's almost like lying, except everyone's in on it, and still wants to hear the story. It's an amazing power to have, Temperance Brennan admits, and just one more to add to her arsenal. In high school, English had never been her favourite subject. Science had been first and foremost. Her father had fostered the love for the discipline in her, and it had continued throughout her adult life. But now, she marries the two, merging fact and fiction into something to entertain, to bring someone briefly out of reality. And it brings her out of reality. There's a comfort, in intentionally telling lies. There's a comfort in being able to control what is true and what isn't. In real life, it is incredibly difficult, almost impossible, to control what is true. That is a skill she does not have._

But perhaps we should bring into this dispute the fact that the names of the man and woman in the novels are Andy Lister and Kathy Reichs, respectively.

And these two people were not completely like what some may see as their counterparts in real life.

"_Will she ever tell Andy about her affair with Ryan?" Riku Iwanaga asks her, and again, she's surprised at the questions. It's like her books, the actual cases, the science, they were all just settings in which two characters could live out their love affairs for the world to read about. She understands the necessity of such things, to show the roundness of their characters, to denote the passage of time, to make things as close to real life as possible. But that's not what she had set out to do, when she had started to write. And of course, Andy Lister and Kathy Reichs weren't anything like real life, either. They were not Booth and Bones. They were lovers. _

"_That was inconsequential fluff, Ms. Iwanaga." Because it really was, and affairs and sexual encounters shouldn't be what people care about. Truth, justice, fairness, those should be what the reader is left with at the end of the day. Not how many times Andy brought Kathy to orgasm. _

"_It's why they fight in chapter six." the other woman tells her. But what does this woman know about her books, about her characters? What right does she have to tell her what is important and what isn't?_

"_Well, they identify the lotus tooth in chapter six." _

"_That is when their passion is released: page 187." Of course, she brings page 187 up. Because apparently Angela's sexual escapades are more thrilling than the identity of the murderer._

"_Why are you only asking about things that mean nothing?" she asks. It's puzzling, the world of novels and writers and publishers and readers, of fans and book-signings and release parties. It's times like these when she wishes she had just stuck with what she knew._

_Iwanaga answers her, looking at her, like she's crazy, because surely…_

"_Those are the things that mean everything."_

Andy didn't have a son, you see, and the man in the reality that we are currently exploring, the one that has the most evidence towards it being true at the moment, has a very alive little boy, born of a love that had not and would never meet the right circumstances.

"_What's that, Daddy?" _

_They're at the zoo, Seeley and Parker Booth, and it's just about time for lunch. But Seeley doesn't think about that. He doesn't think about the big pile of work waiting for him at home, or the angry voicemail from Rebecca. No, he's here with his son, two weeks after Parker's third birthday, and he's never been happier in his life. It seems like every time he's with him, just them, father and son, he loves him a little more. Loves life a little more. It's moments like this when he believes, a little more, that maybe it wasn't such bad luck that he had knocked Rebecca up. Fatherhood, now there's a word he's never understood until now. It's been a long journey, but it's been an incredible one. Nothing, not even the army, has changed him this much._

"_That's a hippopotamus, Park-o. They live in Africa." _

"_Why do hippapamuses gotta live in Africa? Don't they like it here?" _

"_It's a little cold for them in America, Buddy."_

"_Then why are they here? Are they special hippamuses?"_

"_Nope, the zoo's just an okay place for them to be. But they can't have too many over here."_

"_Okay, Daddy." He marvels at the way his son hangs on to his every word, accepts everything he says without argument. Unlike some people. His thoughts drift over to the events of the past week. Temperance Brennan, now there was a woman. And of course, everything had gone swiftly south after he had tried to sleep with her. Everything in his life seems to be going completely wrong, from his job, to his relationships, to the gambling problem that isn't a problem, because he always wins, and there's no harm in winning. There's a small part of him, though, that likes to remind him that having a gambling addict for a father isn't exactly something a kid can boast about at school. And he wants his son to be proud of him. Like he wasn't proud of his own father. _

The fictional FBI agent also didn't enjoy wearing a belt buckle decorated with a rooster and the word _COCKY_, or garish socks and ties, and most significantly, he _didn't always shoot straight_.

_He's not impressed, with the way things are going in his life. He'd been shaken up, quite a bit, with the whole brain surgery-coma dream thing. And now he's learned that he can't remember who Seeley Booth was, before he had started losing it. Can't remember which foot to put first, what he likes in his coffee, how to fix sinks, all sorts of things he knew he'd taken for granted before. Now he can't shoot straight. And there's a small part of him that knows Gordon Gordon is right. So yeah, he brings Brennan to the shooting range. He's scared to death of losing her, and he'll do anything to protect her. _

_He'll even take Gordon Gordon's other piece of advice, and be patient, hopeful and patient. He's told people that they can't rush her before, and he knows that it's even more important now. There's a moment, where everything falls together perfectly, where everything seems right. He'll find it with her, even if it takes him the rest of his life._

_He fires two rounds of shots, the gun singing into his ears, bang bang bang bang. He's always quiet, the world is always quiet, when he's shooting things. Because the gun can bring about death, and death should always be quiet. It rarely is, but it should be. This isn't exciting, this isn't playtime. It's what he has to do, to save people. To save her._

_The targets are brought back._

"_Excellent, Agent Booth." says the range master, and he knows. He knows he's excellent, because he's Special Agent Seeley Booth. _

_He turns to Brennan, and she gives him a thumbs up, because she knows he's excellent too. She know him, she knows him so much that she can see when things are wrong. Except one thing, because he's been trying his hardest to keep it from her. Or maybe because it's always been a part of the him she's known. Maybe she doesn't see it now, because it isn't different. _

_He sees the targets, sees all of the holes his perfect shots have made. _

_And he smiles._

But he was kind, and brave, fiercely protective and a good Catholic man, dark-haired, with the eyes the colour of rich chocolate.

And again, the similarities part.

For unlike in the reality we are about to explore, Andy enjoyed a sexual relationship with Kathy, a fact detailed explicitly in scenes the real man liked to read over and over, replacing names with the faces he knew.

"_You know, we still have a few hours until sunrise." Kathy looms over him, shafts of sunlight playing on her sun-bronzed body, and she sees his eyes darken, and looks down. His morning arousal is clear through the sheets, and he's naked from their last round of intercourse. It's always like this, when they're away on a case together. They book separate hotel rooms, knowing that they will end up sharing one. Nights of fiery passion, mornings of much the same, and then they return home. Their liaisons slow, but never falter. And she sees him nearly every day, for a case, perhaps for a cup of coffee, maybe even a casual dinner out. They're not dating, exactly, because it's both more and less than that. It's been like this since she first slept with him, that one night, years ago. It just keeps getting better, their sex life. She begins to think that she lives for justice and moments like this._

"_Yeah?" Andy asks her, wrapping his arms around her lithe frame. She's strong, but flexible, tall, but not large; in other words, a perfect sexual partner for him. _

_She feels the familiar sensation spreading throughout her body, starting from between her legs, and suddenly he is kissing her again, with a precision that never fails to amaze her. They fall back onto the bed, as she wraps her legs around him. _

"_Think we can finish before then?" he asks her, between passionate kisses on her neck. "Because I don't want to be late for the interrogation." Kathy arches her neck in reply, allowing his lips to trace a larger path on her bare form. He continues downwards, and she moans in response to his mouth on her full—_

_Booth stops reading, breathing heavily. It's hard, reading her work like this, when he knows there are few differences between the characters in the book and the people in real life. When he knows that he could be enjoying the same relationship with Temperance Brennan. But he can't, because unlike in the books, there is a line between them, a barrier, rules and regulations and things he can't let himself do, can't let happen to her. _

_He picks the book up again, knowing that he needs to know what happens next, because there's still a murder to solve, never mind all of the hot sex. He sinks deeper under his covers, suddenly feeling dirty. But hell, don't women read smutty romances and 'relieve their biological urges' on vibrators? This is no different, except for the pesky fact that these are his partner's, his Bones' words, and her sexy little scenes. He continues on, ignoring the voices in his head._

—_breasts. He leaves a trail of wet kisses down to her abdomen, and she grabs his head, pulling him back up to her. Kathy—_

_No._

—_Bones kisses him with force, allowing her tongue to find the little crevices in his mouth she knows so well, and he kisses her back, pressing her into the bed. _

"_We shouldn't bother with the foreplay." she whispers to him, blue-grey eyes smouldering and sure. She kisses his body this time, sucking hard at his pulse points, and by this point, he doesn't care about the marks she's leaving on him. _

"_You sure?" he asks, reaching down to caress her derriere. _

"_Yes." she says, flipping him over. Her rounded breasts press against his chest, and…_

_Some time later, he lies in bed, thinking about how pathetic this all is. How much shame he would feel if Brennan could see him now, getting off to the sex scenes in her books. Getting off to the thought of making love to her. _

But only in the dark of the night, when the border between the conscious mind and the subconscious is at its thinnest, the time when dreamland mixed in with the mundane of the Earth, when he can see expressions and emotions and feelings painted on her face that he had never seen there before.

_Brennan smiles at him seductively, taking off her thickly rimmed glasses. His eyes widen, and he's glad he's sitting on a chair, because he would have lost his balance otherwise. She shakes out her hair, excessively, yes, but this is so, _so_ hot.  
"Mr. Booth, do you know what the penalty is for an overdue book?" Her blouse is white, nearly translucent, so tight he's surprised she can breathe in it. It's cut in a deep vee, and disappears beneath the equally tight black pencil skirt. Her look is completed by a pair of high black stilettos, stilettos that made her miles long legs seem a couple miles longer. _

"_No…" he breathes, too turned on to speak properly. She steps closer to him, swaying her hips that extra little bit. It's just for him, this is all for him. _

"_Then let's find out." Brennan whispers in his ear, and he nearly loses it there. _

But now, when he reads the pages of a sex life he's not living, his mind is troubled, for now he knows that hanging on to the unlikely hope that the woman had been living her fantasy sex life with him through the pages is irrational. Because now, the man knows that she was never the one responsible for the steamy midnight rendezvous between the scientist and the agent.

And the man is nothing if he doesn't try desperately to _rationalize_ the things that he shouldn't be feeling.

At least, that's what he's been leaning towards, this past year, after trying and failing to find himself in real life, after he had lived in another world for what had felt like a lifetime.

"_Well, you know that glass of wine that we share every night?" Bren asks, smiling at him._

_The unusual chaos has died down, and now they're back to who they were before. Mr. B and Bren, night club owners, husband and wife, two different people who happen to be completely in love with each other. She's been called a cold fish; he's been told he'd have killed for her. And he would have. He would kill for her, he would die for her. He would do anything for her. He's in love._

"_Yeah…"_

"_I have to stop that." she tells him._

"_Oh c'mon, Bren. Just because you have one glass of wine every night with your husband, doesn't mean you're an alcoholic."_

"_That's not why." He realizes what she's been trying to say, and the biggest grin ever finds its way onto his face. This is what he's been waiting for. What his life has been leading to._

"_No way!" he says, absolutely ecstatic. _

_She chuckles that wonderful chuckle of hers, the one that made him fall in love with her the first place. _

"_Yeah!" He kisses her, and somehow this kiss feels a little different. Like there's more behind it. Like there's the promise of a family behind it. _

"_You are pregnant! There's a little baby boy, huh?" He'll play catch in the park with their son, take him to the fair and buy him cotton candy, go on camping trips with him, teach him how to fish…_

"_Or girl…" Bren says, and he doesn't care. Anything that belongs to both of them has to be the most precious thing in the world. He's ready for this. They smile at each other, both feeling happier than they've ever felt in their life. Because of the baby inside her womb, and the promise of something even better than what they have now. The promise of love, now and until death do them part. _

She's been doing well, being empirical and rational and logical and all of that, and while he doesn't have any PhDs, he can still put the heart in neutral and the brain in overdrive.

At least, until the younger man reminded him of who he was and who he should be, and he ignored everything that screamed at him that he wasn't ready and took the gamble and destroyed everything because she didn't love him and he loved her and all he wanted was…


	5. Chapter 5

You see two people and you think, they belong together.

But they never seem to want it to happen at the same time.

Let's come back to the time shortly after a rushed trip to the hospital.

The woman had been scared, more scared that she remembered feeling in her life.

_They're all waiting, because that's what people do in a hospital, when their friend is possibly dying and there hasn't been any news. Angela and Hodgins are sitting together, Sweets has given up his usual façade as the professional superstar psychologist, and is letting himself worry. It's good for them, to worry. This is reminding them that they're all human, that they can leave this life in an instant. _

_Brennan enters, bearing news, and they turn towards her, because even though she isn't a medical doctor, she has information, and that's what they're starving for right now. _

"_They think it's a cerebellar pilocytic astrocytoma." she tells them, and yeah, maybe she's struggling a little bit to keep her voice level, maybe she's not. Maybe she's shaking on the inside, worried as hell, maybe her rational side is telling her there's a miniscule chance that everything's _not_ going to be alright, so worrying is pointless. You wouldn't know, because Temperance Brennan has a mask on, and it's pretty damn thick right now._

"_Oh, God. That sounds bad." says Sweets, and maybe for a man with no medical training, it does sound pretty bad. Maybe for a man with medical training it sounds pretty bad too. But no one in the room, except perhaps Cam, and Brennan who knows already, knows if it's bad or not. They're waiting. They don't know if this is going to mean good things, or bad things, or really bad, Booth dying things. You don't want to breathe out of place in this room. They're waiting, listening, not arguing with each other for once. _

"_Brain tumor. It's usually benign." There's a slight edge to the way she says usually, as if she's expecting Cam's next comment. _

"_Usually." Cam repeats, and it's one of those usuallys that asks some pretty big questions. But Brennan doesn't answer any of them. She doesn't want to. This is all too real for her, all too dangerous. She might lose him again. She might actually lose him. And shut up, Brennan's rational mind, because there's still a chance he won't survive this, so she'll worry all she wants. _

"_They're prepping him for surgery now." _

"_Wow. So fast." And yes, Hodgins, it is fast. They've got to get moving. This is a cerebellar pilocytic astrocytoma we're talking here, not a slipped disk, not an ear infection. It's usually benign. Usually._

"_They didn't want to take any chances." Brennan tells them. And _she_ doesn't want to take any chances either. That's why she had needed to convince him to trust her, that seeing cartoon babies and dead army buddies wasn't something a normal brain did. It's a damn good thing that he trusts her more than anyone else he knows. _

"_Go. He shouldn't be alone before he goes in there, Brennan." Angela, her usual voice of reason that isn't logic, tells her to go. But she's been waiting to do that, ever since she walked away from his side. _She_ doesn't want to be alone, when he goes under. If this is her last chance to see him, talk to him (which, it probably isn't, but just try telling that to her now), then she has to know Seeley Booth for as much time as possible._

"_I just wanted all of you to know…" She chokes up a little, and here's where you figure out that she really was struggling to keep her voice level, and she really was shaking on the inside, and all of those other things you never hear of Dr. Temperance Brennan doing. "… statistically, he should be fine." Statistics aren't calming her, but maybe they'll calm everyone else. And maybe it does. They all nod, and she gets the hug she was expecting and hoping for from Angela. She likes to hug Booth when she gets scared. But she's scared about Booth. He's not here. He might never be with her again. She ends the embrace, trying to put on her big girl face again. And she can't. "This isn't about me." she tells them, and sure, that's true. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt them a little bit more, seeing her like this. She walks away from the group. She's going to him now. He's not going to be alone. _

_If he dies, he dies alone._

_And she'll be alone._

Because this wasn't in her control.

And if everything failed, then her life would change again.

So, another reality sprang into place when his body laid on a starched sheet, monitors singing their sweet song of _beep-beep-beep_, the tone rarely changing, the tempo rarely speeding or slowing.

_It's the end of the first day, waiting for him to wake up. It's stupid, to lose hope now, not when there's the rest of her life for him to wake up. Maybe it's stupid to have hope at all, because after all, optimism only brings disappointment when things don't go as planned. Pessimists may be grumpy and miserable, but at least they experience more unexpected pleasant surprises. _

_But he's alive, at least._

_Nothing went wrong in surgery, except for the whole bad reaction to the anesthetic thing. _

_Except for the whole waiting here thing, not wanting to leave his side for a second, lest something happen while she's gone. _

_(She tries to use the restroom as quickly as possible, still angry at the fact that Booth can stay there all he wants, not having to worry about eating or peeing or sleeping, because he just does that all automatically. She's sure the nurses would refuse to hook her up to a catheter and an IV drip and give her a space on his hospital bed, so she can literally never leave his side.)_

_Her laptop sits there, taunting her. Her publisher wants a new manuscript ASAP, and while she's had tons of inspiration before…_

_This isn't the time to write about imaginary cases, or discuss Andy and Kathy's latest sexual escapades with Angela over a bottle of expensive wine. _

_The laptop turns on, maybe because she pressed a button, maybe of its own accord. It doesn't matter._

_Because she begins to type._

_She begins to type, hearing the machines hooked up to Special Agent Seeley Booth as a comfortingly familiar lullaby. It's oddly peaceful here, in the evening, when nearly everyone is out of the hospital. She's oddly at peace._

"_People say you only live once, but are as wrong about that, as they are about everything." she writes, remembering a conversation with Angela that said something vaguely similar, though she wouldn't let any proper scientist catch her writing anything like this. She's not supposed to be a poet._

"_In the darkest moments before dawn a woman returns to her bed. What life is she leading? Is it the same life the woman was leading half an hour ago? A day ago? A year ago?" _

_She's not supposed to be a lover._

This gave her comfort enough to draw on an old power, one as old as our race itself.

Her mind began to spin the thread of fiction once again, something that it had done many times before, but this time she let reality mix in with it differently.

"_Who is this man? Do they lead separate lives, or is it a single life shared?" People cannot become one. They cannot break the laws of physics. Brennan knows things; things that she is sure are true beyond everything else. She knows science._

_She is a scientist. _

"_A storm approaches. A still over the horizon, but there is lightning in the air. Are either of them aware of the gathering turbulence? Can they feel the crackling of electricity in the wind? Or are they only aware of the power they generate between themselves?"_

_It doesn't matter that she is writing so romantically, so metaphorically, so flowery and passionately. This is what she feels. This is what she says she doesn't feel. This is what she's afraid to feel._

_Afraid for him to know she feels._

_She's a scientist, not a lover._

_Booth thinks with his (metaphorical) heart, she thinks with her head._

_He's shown her that his way of thinking is not only possible, but works quite well for him._

_For him._

_Not for her._

_But she has this._

_She can write._

_And so she does._

"_The first hint of the storm is not a thunderclap. It is a knock."_

_Indeed, it was a knock._

Instead of the events, the occupations, the grim realities that she saw paralleled in her own life, she took the core of what she knew, and yes, this time, she allowed names to match faces, and she constructed circumstance around it.

"_Can you feel that?" Clark Edison asks. What exactly does he want her to feel? It's a building, her building, admittedly, and it means a great deal to her, but she doesn't feel any sort of— "I mean this place is magic! Your stage has mystic properties." He kisses his fingers._

_She's heard the rumours, and knows that secretly Mr. B had wanted this place for that very reason, but she knows that their success has simply been because of their good business sense. And letting this guy in, when his brother has gang connections and could turn their club into a centre for very illegal activities, is not good business sense. _

"_That is a ridiculous urban legend." she tells him, pointing out the truth as she always does, hoping that if she does it enough, people will start thinking rationally and will give up on all of their superstitious nonsense. It hasn't worked on Booth. He still believes in God, says grace every night before they eat. She's grown used to it._

"_Then explain to me how so many of the people who've played here over the years have gone on to fame and fortune?"_

"_Maybe it's because we have good taste." her husband retorts._

"_This place had the power before you got here, and'll have it after you're gone. All I want is my piece of the legacy." He's showy, flashy, personality as big as his ego. He spins around on the spot, and yeah, he's got moves. "C-Sync baby! And if you had good taste, you would book me first, and then each of my protégés thereafter, ya dig?" No, Brennan does not dig. There's nowhere to dig, seeing as the floor isn't made of dirt, and she doesn't have a shovel._

"_Well, dig this:" Booth says, and she realizes that 'dig' was probably another annoying hip-hip colloquialism. She may own a nightclub, but she isn't hip to the culture. She never has been. She's smart, street and otherwise, sure, but there's a reason people like to call her a cold fish._

"_I recognize your personal talent, but we won't book you or your…" he trails off, and she finishes his sentence._

"_Protégés."_

"_Because of your bro-tha." Booth adds, making sure they all know that it's _that_ kind of brother they're talking about._

"_So, you're just brazenly racist." C-Sync says. _

"_This is exactly where I did not want this conversation to go." Caroline chimes in. _

"_My husband is concerned about your gang ties. Which is not you, but is your brother." If people would just listen to each other, speak clearly, and work things out rationally, then the world would be an easier place to live in. But she knows no one wants to live like her, taking everything literally. She's like a scientist, examining evidence, looking at everything logically. She's glad she has Seeley Booth to help her with the other side of things. She's learned, through him, that the other side, the irrational, emotional side, can be just as powerful, if not more powerful, that what she likes to trust in._

_She's the head, he's the heart._

_And their nightclub is pretty damn awesome._

Though she didn't think it aloud, she began to weave a tapestry of a life never led.

A life denied, perhaps, because of something that had happened long ago, before walls had been solidly erected around what she would learn was delicate and easily broken.

"_Russ! Where are Mom and Dad?" Tempe runs through the house, looking under couches and in cupboards and in places she knows would never fit two grown adults. It's two in the afternoon, and her parents… they didn't say they were going anywhere today. Groceries were purchased, friends visited, doctor's appointments gone to. _

"_For the last time, Tempie, I don't know!" her brother shouts back at her, just as angry and worried as she is. They've never done this, never left without telling them._

_He gets a feeling in the pit of his stomach, a bad feeling._

_A feeling that tells him this has something to do with the day they all changed their names and ran away._

_Kyle's scared now, he's scared that something's happened. _

_He's scared that his and Joy's life is going to have to change again._

_It's only been fourteen hours since he saw them go to bed, but he knows they're not coming back._

_He knows with complete conviction, because this has happened before._

_But they're here, and their parents aren't. _

_Russ walks over to her, and hugs her, and waits until she finishes crying._

_Tempe never cries. _

She began to write a life, though she never mentioned it, where her mother and father had lived in the background, along with her brother, and _Max_ wasn't her father, no, her father had a different face, and Max had simply been everything she hadn't wanted to see in her parents.

"_I'm your councilman, maybe I can help." Max says. He's crooked, as crooked as they can get. And he's helped them before. Wants to help them now. The thing is, getting Max's help always comes at a price. _

_Booth laughs._

"_What's that going to set us back?" he asks, every bit the world-weary club owner._

"_I want you to consider the possibility that this unfortunate incident," the councilman begins._

"_You mean the homicide." Brennan says, cutting him off. She hates this man, detests him, actually. It's like everything her husband isn't has been lumped into Max Keenan. And she doesn't even know the half of it. She doesn't know everything about the Gravedigger._

"_Maybe if you had remembered to reimburse the people that went out of their way to get you that zoning change—"_

"_Ok, really, what're you gonna do, put the squeeze on us retractably?" Mr. B's not worried. There's only so much Max Keenan can do. Their club is safe, as soon as they get through this homicide mess._

"_Why's it so hard for your husband to see the ways of the world?" Max asks. Oh, but he's seen them. He'd been in the middle of reliving the ways of the world, when she'd met him at the bar. He's not a crooked politician, though. Sure, he knows the ways of the world, but he tries as hard as he can not to make them his ways. _

"_Because he wants me to be proud of him." Brennan tells Max, and it's really, really not hard to be. He's a good man, her husband. And he would kill for her._

And in this world of altered circumstance, where she allowed the denials that had set themselves over the manifestations of a friend's wine-fueled suggestions to disappear, she began to live a life.

And in this life, she knew nothing of Bones.

And in this life, she knew nothing of professional lines, or the danger of the job.

"_Up. Up. There you go. Alright?" Booth straps Parker into the ride, making sure he's secure. His son needs to be secure, he needs to be safe._

_Brennan's watching them silently, and sees her partner kiss Parker on the top of his head. "Knuckles." the man says, and for some reason she cannot explain, father and son bang their knuckles together. Perhaps it's a male thing. Perhaps it's a parent-child thing. Neither of which she can really she knows much about. He walks away, the ride starting to go. And he sees her. "Hi." he says. "How'd you know I was here?"_

"_Saturday morning." Brennan answers. "How's Parker?" _

"_Yeah, I'm afraid I freaked him out the other day. He's really scared of this place. Now I gotta put that right." Just another thing to worry about, on top of everything else. It's been an intense few days. He's not sure how's he's survived all of it. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that he knows she'll always support him, even if she has to try really hard to do it properly. He sits down on a bench, happy to let his body rest, if only for a few minutes._

"_That's you all over— putting things right." Brennan tells him. She sits down next to him, the appropriate distance, of course. She still doesn't know what to do with him, half the time. But she tries, she really does. Because she just might care about him more than anyone else. _

"_Cam gets released from the hospital today?" she asks, after an exhale. It's been an intense week for her too. Sure, she's been locked up in third-world countries and seen victims of genocide, lying in mass graves, impossible to tell apart from the skeleton lying in pieces next to it, but that doesn't mean this hasn't been hard._

"_Yeah." Booth says, and even she can tell that there's something behind his single syllable. _

"_What?"_

"_You know, what happened to Cam happened because . . . we had a personal relationship." He tells her, and she knows, even with her limited interpersonal skills, that he's really beating himself up over everything. _

"_Had?" Dumping Cam after she nearly died seems pretty cold for him. But there's been times, when Booth's been cold, when he's been just as insensitive as she can be. Something tells her, though, (and it's definitely not gut instinct) that coldness isn't the case here. _

"_Yeah." he replies, and this yeah is just as heavy as the yeah before it. "People who work in…" he struggles to find the right term. He's protecting her, he's protecting himself. He doesn't know if he needs to tell her this, if she'd ever even want… no. No risks. No feeble grasps for rewards. "High-risk situations, they can't be involved romantically because it leads to things like what happened." he finishes. Oh, God, but he'd be beating himself even more if something ever happened to her. It's worth it, to never see anything happen to his Bones. Even if he spends his whole life wondering what it would be like, if he thought about the possibility of loving her, really loving her, not just lusting after her. He doesn't know now, that one day all of the __façade__s will be lifted and he'll want to pretend that there aren't real, dangerous risks to a relationship with her. He doesn't know that one day he'll forget everything he's decided about her, about waiting for that one right moment when he knows she's ready for… more._

"_High-risk situations." Brennan repeats. She doesn't know if he's just talking about Cam, or if he's talking about her. It's too general, and she doesn't know if her own annoying feelings for him are influencing what she's getting out of the conversation. It makes her wish for her old life back, the life in the lab, without him and all of the things he brought with him. She's not good at this. Everything's new to her, everything's out of her comfort zone. _

"_Every single day it's with us." Booth continues. "There's this line, and we can't cross it. You know what I'm saying?"_

"_Yes. I understand." she replies, though she doesn't, not really. She's sad, in a way, because she's finally gotten past the stage of telling herself that kissing him again, like that night under the rain, would be a very, very bad idea, and now…She doesn't know if he'd ever want her, but this line, well, there are no possibilities now. She takes a deep breath, as Parker waves from the merry-go-round. "He seems okay now." she says, changing the subject. She compartmentalizes, she doesn't defect, or rationalize. But her brain is working strangely right now, working out problems that have nothing to do with science. _

"_Yeah, you know, it's important to make things right." Booth says, and he's completely correct, of course. Things need to be right. Things _need _to be right. "I just don't know how. I don't know how." he finishes, and their moment moves on, and so does the day._

_She's lying in bed, later that night, thinking. It's an annoying thing, thinking when one is supposed to be sleeping. But that's what she's doing; pondering what he said and what it meant for the things she wasn't supposed to want. _

_Hypothesis: People who work in high risk situations can't be involved romantically because it leads to things like what had happened to Camille Saroyan. _

_Fact 1: Something like what had happened to Camille Saroyan had happened to Booth while in her company. _

_Fact 2: She and Booth were not romantically involved. They were just partners._

_Conclusion: Lack of romantic involvement does not prevent tragedy from happening. _

_Hypothesis disproved. _

She simply knew love; love between two people that she knew in reality would never be able to come to fruition.

Because even though she was coming to believe that what she was feeling towards this man was in fact love, the mythical, the fantastic force of legend (or at least something quite similar), she didn't know what to do about it.

_Brennan doesn't love Hacker. Loving Andrew is a ridiculous notion. She doesn't love easily. It takes an uncommon person, and a lot of time, for her to care so deeply about another person. She loves her family, Max, even though he's not a good person in the traditional sense, Russ, even though he left her when she needed him. She loves her family in the lab, Hodgins, even though she finds him quite irritating at times, Angela, because she's taught her how to live big and wide and all of those things, Zach, even though he hasn't been at the lab for some time, even though he made a mistake through faulty logic. She even has a certain affection for the interns, though none of them are as good as Zach was. Hell, she might even love Sweets, in a weird, grudging sort of a way. They're a family. One of the many types of families. _

_And she loves Booth._

_She loves him, and is watching him move on, just like he said he would. _

_Just like she needs him to._

_She'll never love Andrew Hacker, because she is a scientist, and she needs overwhelming evidence of a person's worthiness before allowing herself to feel so much emotion towards them._

_She wonders why Booth feels that _she_ is worthy of his love. _

_Felt, perhaps, because he's wearing a tie from Catherine. _

_But _she_ still loves _him_, even as she sits with Hacker, laughing at one of his ridiculous jokes. _

_She hopes and (and desperately doesn't hope) that he feels the same way. _

_She cannot be with him, knowing that she isn't able to be what he needs from her. _

_At least, that's what she tells herself. _

_But in reality, when she's constantly asking questions, trying to deny that she feels jealous of this new woman in Booth's life, she's confused. She doesn't know what to do in this situation, because Booth is unlike anything she's ever known before. She doesn't want to break him. She's trying hard not to break herself._

Because the man and the woman, they both seemed to want different things in life.

He thought she needed to be free of the constraints of society's norms, of the need for complete monogamy, he thought that she needed to be able to respond to biological urges, to be, in short, what humans were supposed to be.

She thought that he needed a strong, stable woman, one who would love him and love him and love him, give him children and an all-American household.

The man and the woman didn't know what the other really needed.

They didn't even know what they themselves really needed.

And if you don't know what you need, it's pretty damn hard to get it.


	6. Chapter 6

**Well, we're coming to the end. And by the end, I mean a huge monster chapter before the finale airs and blows us away. But this isn't it. Thanks again to everyone who has reviewed, put me on alert, ect. It's been an awesome journey. If you have any thoughts on this, any at all, please feel free to leave a comment. I'd love to know what all you readers have been thinking. **

**Also, please be aware that this chapter contains general spoilers for The Boy with the Answer (which was fantastic, by the way), as well as spoiler speculation for next week's episode. **

You see two people, and you think, they belong together.

But no one really knows what that means.

Because if you look at it from the woman's perspective, if there really is only one person out there for everyone, then the likelihood of actually encountering that person and finding the right circumstances to be together in a romantic way, then staying together until death does you part…

It's astronomical.

But if another man had come to work with her, and this man had been kind, and caring, and brave and confident and attractive and masculine and yes, just a little bit broken, then maybe she would have grown around them too, perhaps that man would have been the one inexplicably linked to her.

"_Hey, Davis, where are you going?" Seeley Booth runs after his colleague, trying hard not to let the papers slide out of his hands. Agent Brian Davis is faster than him, but they've had bench pressing competitions, and Booth is definitely stronger than the younger agent. _

"_Going over to meet that lady scientist your girlfriend suggested I consult with on the case." Davis answers, slowing down his strides. It's not his fault he has unusually long legs. _

"_For the last time, Davis, Camille is not my girlfriend." The other agent just laughs. "Sure." he grins. "You two are just friends, right? Anyway, I can't thank you enough for handing the Gemma Arrington case over to me. I've got some theories that are going to blow the case wide open. Plus, with Dr. Brennan helping, I figure we'll get enough evidence to convict this time." Booth smiles. So young, so eager. He remembers being like Agent Davis. He laughs inwardly at himself. Brian Davis is only two years younger than him, hardly a difference. But he doesn't have the weight of a gambling non-addiction and a bastard son on his back. _

"_Well, I wasn't getting anywhere with it—"_

"_You only had it a few weeks!"_

"—_And I figured a new perspective would do it some good. Besides, I don't want to handle that career-killer." He pauses at the look Davis's face. "Hey, what happened to all of those insights you had on this? Brian, if you solve this one, it'll be a huge boost to you. You might even get Caroline Julian's office. I heard she's getting promoted."_

"_I've always wanted my own desk…" Davis has always been lucky with the ladies, what with his handsome face, runner's body, and ability to charm the pants off anyone. Having his own office, at the FBI, would only bring bigger and better things with the opposite sex. _

"_Well, here's the rest of the paperwork. Have fun with it. And if you're free after work, we should go to the bar and watch the game. You can tell be all about your adventures with the squints."_

"_Will do, Agent Booth." Davis says, taking the papers from him with a smile. This was certainly going to be an interesting experience. _

Except their link isn't inexplicable.

Because there are reasons, why these two people, the man and the woman, are the only people for each other.

It's because through circumstance, their bonds have grown to the point that they have fallen in love, real love, terrible and powerful.

And yeah, maybe he'll be able to meet another woman, and spend years knowing her, and maybe she'll be just as special to him.

"_Happy two-year anniversary!" Booth calls out, clinking their champagne glasses together. He takes a sip of the drink, feeling the bubbles slide down his throat. He's always loved champagne. A memory surfaces before he can push it back down. It's Angela and Hodgins' post-wedding party, and they're all crowded around the enormous cake, waiting for Hodgins to cut it. Brennan's standing next to him, looking happy, truly happy, the happiest he's seen her since the Gravedigger trial. He smiles at her, and she smiles back. _

_No._

_He's in New York now, heading up a crime unit with his partner, Special Agent Holly Taylor. They've been working together for two years now, and they've grown quite close. Close enough to be drinking champagne alone together in his apartment. Their knees are touching, but he pretends not to notice, just like he pretends not to notice that he works with a beautiful woman. He's had plenty of practice with that._

"_So, what's your favourite memory of our time together?" Holly asks, and he smiles. They've had a lot of good times. She's smart, funny, incredibly sarcastic, and just a little bit misanthropic. Despite her hatred of social situations, though, she's quite good with people. Like him, she can read them like a book. When there's a man that needs charming, she's the woman to go to. Her rich auburn hair and dark green eyes have sent more than one man into a stupour. He's gotten used to her new haircut, too._

"_Oh, come on, Booth, can't you think of just one? I know my favourite is definitely you walking into the office and screaming at my hair."_

"_You cut all of it off!" Her long locks, which he had frequently seen her brushing off of her shoulders, had been reduced to a chin-length bob that angled down severely towards her face. She still looked pretty damn fine, though. _

"_Hey, when I need a change, I need a change. Just because you've been wearing weird ties and crazy socks all of your life doesn't mean I can't shake things up once in a while." Yeah, all his life. He had always been a rebel. He had always wanted to disobey authority. He hadn't learned that he could be an individual from a certain forensic anthropologist. _

"_Fine, but don't go getting a sex change or anything. I think I'd die from shock."_

"_Don't worry, this woman's staying a woman. Although, if I did turn into a man, I could get that hot gay CSI. Man, that man knows how to work out!" Holly never made a secret of her attraction to the opposite sex, or, in some cases, to her own sex. She was a wild woman, that was for sure, but she had an incredible track record and always worked as hard as she could to get the case done. She really was an exceptional agent._

"_Hey, what about me?"_

"_Don't worry, Booth, you're still pretty fine, for an old man."_

"_Taylor! You know I'm sensitive about the whole age thing."_

"_God knows why. You're hot, in shape, charming, kind, enough credentials to land you a gig in the White House, and you're the best father I've ever met. You're doing alright. Besides, I'm forty-two, and you don't hear me complaining."_

"_Yeah, but between my back, and the whole no girlfriend thing, I can't help but feel a bit inadequate." He's slept with women, sure. No more than two dates since Catherine, though, and that had been… God, that year felt like centuries ago. Which was good, because he didn't like to think of that year. Or the year after it._

"_Seeley, the only reason you don't have a girlfriend is because you refuse to get out there. It's like that one Great Unnamable Thing that happened a few years back has inhibited your ability to pursue a relationship." _

"_I do want a relationship." he says quietly. "I just haven't met the right woman." She rolls her eyes. _

"_Right. The age old excuse. Before you know it, you'll be going through your midlife crisis and'll be swimming in blonde Playboy models." He starts to protest, but she puts a hand up. "Believe me; you'll be able to get them." _

"_Am I seriously that attractive? 'Cause with all the complements you're giving me, I'm starting to think you want me." He winks at her, to show that he's joking. He's not allowed to be involved with other agents or consultants. FBI rules._

"_Of course I want you, Booth, what woman wouldn't?" she laughs. "Oh, I am just laying on the complements today, aren't I? Just this once, though, and then I'm going back to mocking you. Hey, you got another bottle of bubbly in the kitchen? 'Cause my ex finally gave me full parental rights, and I feel like celebrating." That was yet another reason he liked Holly, she had a twelve year old son. He and Parker got along really well. It was nice, taking their children to the park on Sunday afternoons. Bonding with their children had really strengthened their work relationship. _

"_How about we cut down on the booze, Taylor. We're trying to cut down on the booze." A few months ago, they had both gone out to their favourite bar and had gotten completely plastered. He had fallen into a bout of depression, and she had been going through a court battle for her son. They had woken up in the middle of a motel room with two blonde hookers and two thousand dollars missing from their pockets. Neither one of them wanted to ask what had happened the night before. When they had recovered from their hangover, they made a pact never to get hammered like that again. Drinking had begun to become destructive for the both of them. _

"_Yeah, yeah, Seeley, cutting down, blah blah blah. What's wrong with a little celebration?" _

"_A little celebration will probably turn into a large headache tomorrow." he answered. "One more glass, and I'm cutting us off. Alright?"_

"_Fine." she grumbles, emptying her flute in one go. "Fill me up, partner." He complies, and she downs this one too, setting the flute on the coffee table. "I think I'm going to go call a cab, Booth. If there isn't more booze in it for me, then it's time to call it a night." _

"_I'll see you in tomorrow, then?" Booth asks. _

"_Yup. Case number thirty-nine is waiting for us in the office, along with all of the paperwork." _

"_I'll see you to the door." he says, and gets up. She brushes the popcorn crumbs off of her shirt and walks over with him._

"_Hey, listen…" Holly starts, looking serious for the first time that night. "I, um, just need to thank you again for, uh, saving me from Gonzalez." She looks down, and he puts a hand on her shoulder. _

"_Holly, I'm always going to be watching your back. You're my partner, and I know you'd do the same thing for me. It comes with the job. The next time a Mexican gang member has me tied up in a warehouse full of TNT, you can come blundering in to be my white knight." She smiles shyly._

"_I would, Seeley. You matter very much to me. Aside from Nathan, I think you're probably the most important person in my life. It means a lot to me that we've gotten this close. I don't think… I don't think I've ever let someone in this far before."_

"_Not even your ex-husband?" he jokes feebly._

"_Tony was just a piece of meat that had happened to impregnate me and wanted to 'do the right thing'." Booth feels two successive pangs in his heart, one at the name Tony, and another at 'do the right thing'. He remembers a time when he had wanted to do the same for Rebecca. He knows now that that would never have turned out well. _

But the woman, she's here now, and they've become linked, they've become who they are, they've become a 'we', and an 'us', and leaving that behind, just because they're afraid of what the other does to them, well…

But there's also something else to what they have, something that wasn't just chance pushing them together.

And that's where you can argue that fate played a role.

What is the likelihood that they had both found the _one_ person who would complement them, make them shine brighter; make them better than the person that they are alone?

_He never does this. He's a man, and real men don't write down their feelings. They certainly don't try to emulate the woman they're in love with by trying to write a novel. He's not exactly academic material. But hell, it's in between training, and he misses her like fuck. He may only be gone for the summer, before the next guy takes over his position, but that doesn't mean that she's going to be back. One of the reasons he left was because she did. And Parker made him shorten the commitment. There was no way he was going to let his son be without a father for a whole year. _

_The laptop sits there, taunting him. Just one flip of the screen, and the document will open back up, ready to continue. He's typed about 500 words since he got to the base, three weeks ago. That's pretty good, right? He gives in, and picks it up. Yeah, yeah, look around, Booth; make sure none of the manly men see you writing something. Make sure they can't see you thinking sappy, emotional thoughts. _

_The screen's too bright, he decides. Two minutes later, after the perfect brightness and contrast are achieved, he takes a good critical look at the keyboard. Clean, free of coffee stains, in good working order. The mouse pad thingy looks to be pretty good too. Right. To work. _

_He reads over what he's written so far, and decides it doesn't really look like a novel. More like a bunch of words written by a lovesick guy. Which is what he is. _

_An email alert pops up on his screen, and his heart takes a painful leap, as it always does when he sees that little envelope icon at the bottom of the screen. Maybe Bones has finally returned one of his emails. He's sent her about a million, telling her about his life, training rangers. He doesn't know much about her dig, because the only thing he heard when she told him about it was the whole 'I'll be going on a twelve month dig in Indonesia." No other information needed. _

_And the email isn't from her. It's from Parker, telling him about the summer camp he's at with his friend Lars. It puts a brief smile on his face, but it doesn't last long. That's it. He's mad, and he's writing._

"_It's not like he doesn't know her inside and out, forwards and backwards. He's just been a little stupid lately, on account of having had a large portion of his brain cut out. Okay, it was a tumour, and not technically important to his brain function. That's what all the fancy scientist people tell him, anyways. But yeah, he's told people before that she isn't the type of woman that you can just go out and say stuff too. You have to approach things nice and slow. Like making love. But what he said, it wasn't making love. It was angry, desperate, baby-please-stay-with-me sex. The kind that's really fast, really rushed, careless and yet gets more energy put into it than anything else. They say he gambled on this one. Yeah, maybe he did. But he's a big boy; he can take care of himself. Sure, yeah, he's just fine. Except for the whole broken heart thing."_

_And now he's turning his little narrative on his imaginary character who's really him into another Brennan defense. The woman left him for a year in Indonesia, digging up ancient dead people, for God's sake! He could have helped her with… with everything. He wasn't the problem; it was her twisted opinions on her emotions. Yeah, he kinda sucked at the whole 'be with me right now or I'm moving on' thing, but they had been doing just fine, right? What exactly did him wishing for her happiness mean to her? Did she ask Angela what that was code for and end up with 'leave him before he decides that yes means no and can't means can'?_

"_Oh, no, the _guy _didn't do anything wrong." he begins again. "But she, she figures that she should crush his heart, all clinical like." Okay, that was kind of inaccurate. You can't yell at a woman for her inability to believe in her open heart and then call her a cold-hearted man killer the next. Not that he yelled at her or anything. Oh, no, he just gave up as soon as she said she couldn't do it. Way to fight for what you want, Seeley. Maybe he's just learned his lesson, about not trying to get back the money he lost at the gamble. Maybe that was a pretty dumb lesson to apply to people._

"_He didn't do anything wrong, she just figured that she can't change and doesn't want to risk it. She's not a gambler, guys. She's a scientist. Twelve million PhDs at least. Gotta have concrete evidence before jumping into anything. Well, what was your evidence there, girly? Despite the fact that this guy's got you to open up, more than you ever have before, to _anyone_, you think you can't change. How's about we look at the real evidence, hey? Let's look at how he's changed you, over the years. Let's look about how you're changed each other. Isn't that why you left, because he changed you so much with all of the death and murderers and sadness? _He_ let out that compassionate person that you're so afraid of. But don't let him say that he has all the authority on this. He's got about as much experience as you do. Winging it, you know the phrase? Flying by the seat of his pants? And don't get into how that doesn't make any sense, because honestly, I've never understood that phrase either."_

_And now he's turned it into a letter to Bones. A letter he'll never send, but he's writing it all the same. The bunker he's staying in is quiet, quiet as a grave. Perfect for ranting. _

"_But he's different now, haven't you noticed? I know you don't have all of his people skills, but you know his habits right? He's not as much of an ignorant, bigoted asshole. You taught him about other cultures, about the different types of societies existing in our world, and how to be an observer. And he's taught you how to see the things hidden underneath people's surfaces. You're a team, and you just leave him? It's okay for _you_ to leave _him_, but not okay for him to leave you? That'll just be proving your little formula on abandonment, won't it? Well, guess what, I'm allowed to leave if you are. I'm not going to wait for you to come back and pretend nothing happened between us. I screwed up, but you don't need to act like there never was anything special, about what we had. We changed each other. We are _better_ people, when we are together. I wouldn't trade any of what we had for the world. If you're going to leave me with a memory, then I'll deal with that. I'll be angry. But you changed me. I _can't_ forget that."_

_He reads over what he's written. It's pretty much an angry monologue now, and don't think he hasn't noticed that he started changing the pronouns up. He can't do this. He highlights the whole thing and presses the delete key. He can't write, not like her. His head isn't filled with technical information and all of that other jazz. He's a simple FBI agent. What possible reason could he have had to think he deserved her, anyways? He wasn't good enough, that was the only conclusion. He couldn't convince her to follow him to the ends of the earth, and that was that. _

_It was time to go to bed, anyways. The Rangers woke up early._

You can argue all you want for whatever side sits best with your beliefs, but the sad truth is, there is no way of knowing either way.

There is no way to know if fate exists, if we are all just gliding down a predetermined track, and there's no way to know that we aren't.

You can hope, you can dream, you can spend your life looking for that _one_ person.

Maybe you'll find them, maybe you won't.

But the man and the woman, they_ have_.

And yes, there are astronomical odds against finding the one person among billions who is right for you, but the odds are even higher against finding another person with whom you could share the same joy.

_Booth says to Brennan: "Do you believe in fate?" _

_And she doesn't. Because she knows fate is a ridiculous notion, and she doesn't know why anyone would want to believe in it anyway. Isn't America all about freedom? Wouldn't people want to think that they have control over their actions? She doesn't understand modern culture. That's why she sticks with ancient remains. _

"_Absolutely not. Ludicrous." she answers. _

_Neither of them know. Not yet._

There isn't any way of knowing that you've found the right person.

You cannot take every person in the world, know them for a few years, and then evaluate your connection with them.

You just can't.

So maybe fate did have a little part to play, a little bit of a role in the story we're telling today.

Then again, if fate is really the ultimate decider, then defying it is really only prolonging the inevitable, and that just means that no one has any control over anything.

And that's where the fate theory meets some problems.

Because for the woman, the most important thing in her existence is control.

_Rebecca moving to New York with her fiancée had been the best thing that had happened to him since…since he had found out that _she_ wasn't coming back. _

_With Brennan in Indonesia, Angela and Hodgins off touring the world on their honeymoon, a Sweets that was trying to keep it together while fiancée was in Indonesia too… it had been a tough year. _

_He turned down the training position. He still worked with the Jeffersonian, but he no longer made it his haunt. The various interns helped him with the cases, and he began to spend increasing amounts of time with Sweets. He and Daisy emailed each other extensively (he even suspected some cyber sex), and the psychologist was constantly bombarded with updates from Indonesia. Booth sent Brennan emails almost daily, but she rarely replied, and when she did, her messages were short and to the point._

_Angela and Hodgins had come back from their honeymoon at the end of the summer of 2011. They were supposed to have met up with Brennan on the last leg of their trip, but when they came back to the lab, suntanned and giggling, the forensic anthropologist was strangely missing. _

"_Booth!" Angela cried upon seeing him in the lab, working with Clark Edison. Fischer, who had also been working on the case with them, keyed the happy couple in. The artist flung her arms around him, nearly knocking him over. "Oh, God, Booth, we've missed you so much!"_

"_Even Hodgins?" he asked, grinning. The entomologist just grinned back at him. "No one on our tour to call me 'Bug Man'." he replied. "Speaking of bugs, you should have seen the—"_

"_Where's Bones?" Booth asked, cutting him off before he could go off on an insect rant. Both of their faces fell noticeably. He got a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach._

_No…_

"_She's—" Hodgins tried to say, but found he couldn't continue. _

"_She's not coming back, Booth." Angela said solemnly._

"_What? What do you mean, she's not coming back? She's—she's not dead, is she? They would have told me if she had— she's not coming back?"_

"_I'm sorry, dude." Hodgins told him, knowing that trying to give him a pat on the back would have earned him a slap. _

"_They found another site on the island, and, well, she's staying for another year." _

"_Another year—what? But, but what about—?" _What about me? _he finished inside his head. _What about our partnership? What about our friendship?

"_She's in love with you." Angela stated bluntly, and he recoiled like he had been shot. _

"What_?"_

"_Booth, she's spent the year living in her own head, thinking about the various ways she can screw you up. She doesn't think she's good enough for you. She knows that you want a woman who can stay with you for the rest of your life. She's the type of person who's afraid of their own emotions. She's the type of person who can't promise anyone anything without evidence, without proof. You know that. And love isn't concrete for her. She doesn't want to make you more broken than you already are."_

"_Oh, and she thinks that abandoning me _won't_ screw me up?" And hey, he was already pretty screwed up. It's been a long year. "Why the hell didn't you stop her?"_

"_You don't think I tried? We were screaming at each other for hours! But it's her decision to make. If she comes back, she won't be able to resist falling into your arms. And I don't want to watch her be with you, waiting for herself to screw it up. Because she thinks she will. I don't want to watch a ghost of what you could be. If she needs this time away from everything, then we have to give it to her. You know what happened to her after the Gravedigger trial. And you know that she needed time. You gave it to her. But she needs more. She can't seem to deal with any of this anymore. When Brennan saw herself turning into an unobjective, emotional person…she can't deal with the prospect of allowing herself to spiral again. Emotions scare her, Booth, because she cannot control them. And right now, even a year later, she needs to gain back that control. That's why she's not coming back."_

_Booth walked past her, ignoring the looks on Clark and Fischer's faces. Angela and Hodgins didn't bother trying to go after him. He needed time alone to think about this._

_Despite the fact that Angela and Hodgins were back, he didn't spend any more time at the Jeffersonian. And when the promotion came up, to head his own department with another agent, he took it. Rebecca had wanted to move to New York with her boyfriend anyway. This would make it easier on everyone. And maybe it would make it easier for him to forget. He couldn't wait another year, just to find out that she wasn't coming home. It wasn't good for him, to put his life on hold, just for her. _

_Two weeks later, he was packing his bags into his SUV, having found an apartment in the Big Apple. Hodgins, Angela, Sweets, Daisy and all of the other interns had come to see him off. _

"_You don't have to do this, Booth." Angela told him, giving him a huge hug. _

"_Yeah, he does, Ange." Hodgins told his wife, nodding at Booth sadly. "Sometimes you have to move away to move on." _

_After several tearful goodbyes, he was on his way. And he never looked back. He hasn't heard from any of them since. _

Now, many would argue that the most important thing in her world is knowledge; the facts, the truth.

But all of those things are only tools to make sure that she remains in control, because if things are real and true and solid, then you can expect them to act as they should, as they always have, and you can predict outcomes, see connections, know everything, after it happens, as it happens, before it happens.

_Brennan hadn't even started packing her bags. After the Gravedigger trial, it had seemed like a good idea, getting away from everything. Because everything reminded her of what it was like, to not know how long life was going to last. A minute, five minutes, five hours, five decades? And everything reminded her of how much that affected her judgment. Losing her objectivity, her ability to be a scientist, that had scared her. She had built walls for a reason, and then Booth had come along and torn them all down. She didn't like the sensation of slipping. It was too much like the sensation of suffocation._

_One could have taken away the 'live each day like it's your last' mentality from the whole ordeal, but her? Temperance Brennan is still logical. Living like there are no risks will inevitably lead to one day actually being the last. She doesn't take risks. Careful experimentation and conclusion drawing, that's for her. And over years, it has been proven that longs trips help her clear her head. And damn, but her head needs clearing. _

_And yet, she's not going._

_She can't help but think that maybe this isn't such a bad change. Maybe this wake up call really was a wake up call, and maybe it was time to decide who she really was. Not who she thought she needed to be, not who he wanted her to be, but who she was. And she wasn't going to find that on an island in Indonesia that no one's heard of. She'll find it at home, with her father and her best friend and her team and her partner, doing what she's learned is one of the most gratifying jobs in the world. Yes, it's hard, hearing about all of the horrors that the human race can do to itself, but she's learned, over the years, that the only thing worse than evil was indifference. And she refuses to be indifferent. She will be objective, she will be detached, when she has to be, but she will never lose compassion._

_Brennan locks her apartment door behind her, and walks out to her car. She's going to the Jeffersonian to pick up Angela for lunch. It was the first of the three days off she was taking, after the case she and Booth had solved. It doesn't sit with her well, that he thought that it was going to be their last for twelve months. He, too, had received an offer, to train Rangers for a year. He hadn't accepted it._

_There was also the pesky fact that Angela and Hodgins were going away on their honeymoon, also for a span of twelve months. She'll miss the both of them. _

_When she gets to the Jeffersonian, Angela is giving Hodgins a very affectionate goodbye kiss. She's happy for them, she really is. It's just sad, to think that she'll never have anything like that. She told Angela once, when her friend had lost her three month out of the year boyfriend, that she had never had that much of a man to herself. She's been in semi-casual relationships before, friends-with-benefits, polyamorous relationships, whatever you wanted to call it, but she's never had a man's whole heart before. Until Booth. But she doesn't know that he hasn't been able to move on. She can't see it._

"_Hey, Sweetie!" Angela says, after detaching herself from her husband. Brennan really is happy for her friend. She can see that marriage works for the pair of them. They have a reason to be in that type of relationship. They have a reason to commit to each other. She just hasn't found one yet. She doesn't have his kind of open heart._

"_Hey, Angela." she replies. "I just have to stop by the Hoover to talk to Booth." _

"_Are you going to tell him that you're not going on that ridiculous dig?" Angela asks._

"_Yes, that is why I am going over there. I won't be long. I have… I have a letter, if he's not there. I believe he may have mentioned that he was trying to get Parker to go fishing with him this weekend." They chat lightly on the way over, and Angela doesn't mention her theory, that Brennan had deliberately picked a time that she knew Booth wouldn't be there, so she wouldn't have to talk to him about why she was staying. And sure enough, when they get to his office, Booth isn't there. Brennan slips the letter under the door, and they leave. _

"_You know Sweetie, I'm really happy you're not going." Angela says, as they're leaving._

"_Why?" Brennan asks. "You're not even going to be here."_

"_Yeah, but I don't even want to imagine how lonely Booth would have been without you." Brennan looks away. She had thought about that too. But that wasn't why she was staying. She needed to take control of her life. And running away wasn't part of the deal._

"_I mean, I'll see him in two days, when I get back from the conference to see you and Hodgins off, but I just wanted to let him know, just in case he was thinking about his offer." _

"_I understand, Sweetie, I really do." Brennan was going to a two day conference in Scotland, and then she was coming back to see them off at the airport. And that would be that. What Brennan did with the year would be up to her._

_Three days later, a blue envelope with the name 'Special Agent Seeley Booth' finds its way into a wastebasket. And another letter, this one with a return address of the same name, finds its way into a mailbox. And then to the US Military._

_The two letters had nothing to do with the other. The addressee of the first, Special Agent Seeley Booth, hadn't even come in contact with the blue envelope. _

And this is also what scares her, about love:

If you _lose_ yourself in another person, you give up control.

And in every situation that she's ever been in, giving up control has never been a good thing.

But she wants to be able to do that, she wants to _know_ transcendent and eternal.

She wants to know love.


	7. Chapter 7 Part 1

**Okay, since the final chapter is ENORMOUS, I am going to be splitting it into parts. Probably three, though I don't know. Anyway, here is Chapter Seven, Part 1. Enjoy!**

"_You love someone, you open yourself up to suffering; that's the sad truth. Maybe they'll break your heart; maybe you'll break their heart and never be able to look at yourself in the same way. Those are the risks."_

She doesn't want to break him.

"_You see two people, and you think, they belong together. _

_But nothing happens. _

_The thought of losing so much control over personal happiness is unbearable."_

She wants to _learn_ to be able to give up her control, to love without restrictions.

"_Those are the risks. That's the burden. Like wings, they have weight, we feel that weight on our backs, but they are a burden that lifts us. Burdens which -."_

She wants to learn to accept the burden, to allow it to lift her up.

Allow her to fly.

And here's another reason, from her long, long list of reasons, why she can't be with the man.

She can't let love rule her entire world, because that would mean something outside of herself dictates the life that she leads.

She can't be with the man, because he'll want to have all of her, and she wants to keep some of herself safe, because the last time she let someone have every bit of her, they left.

And even though the man has never left her, she sees a pattern, in her life, of people who cared about her, leaving, and the way she sees the world…

The way she sees the world, the way she lives her life, it tells her that she should listen to the solid, concrete facts, the pattern that tells her the man will leave her, because facts are more reliable that conjecture and speculation and gut feeling.

_They're in the car, conversing about the case. He's driving; she's in the passenger seat, same old, same old. But there's a fundamental difference today. "Hmm." Brennan says. "When your gut speaks to you, do you think it could be an increase in stomach acid, due to anxiety?_

"_Huh?" Booth asks, because that was kind of out of nowhere. But Brennan, she comes out of nowhere. One day, you're just trying to do your job, make a living, pay child support, and wham! You're consulting with her on a case, and when you see her… Do you believe in fate? Do you believe in the things you cannot quantify?_

"_I-I...feel some anxiety." Anxiety, now that's something new for Brennan. You rarely hear her telling you that she's anxious. Warning sign of unusualness No. 1._

"_Okay, about what?" Booth's being casual, because hey, he's Mr. Laid Back. _Leid_ Back. He should be on a beach in Hawaii right now. He's Mr. Nonchalance, because he isn't being an idiot about his brother right now. He isn't being contrary to his character at all._

"_About your sudden abandonment of a belief system." Huh? He still has a belief system. He's a good Catholic boy. He knows a little bit of Latin. He always says grace before meals and goes to confession. "Really," she continues. "It's-it's making my stomach upset." There seems to be a big gap in their understanding of each other. He really has no idea what she's talking about, none at all, and she's not talking in squint-code. Warning sign No. 2._

"_Okay, you know what? You are really just, um...crack a window there, Bones, all right. Just get some air." 'Cause _she's_ the one who's not herself, who's sick. Failure to recognize the wrong in a situation. Warning sign No. 3._

"_You told me that my father's criminal past didn't matter, that the love between us was real and that was all that mattered. Because I believed you, my father and I have a relationship today." And Booth, you know how important that was to her. But no, Jared can't have an important relationship with a former prostitute. That's just wrong. _

"_Okay. I'm glad I could help out." Get me out of here! screams confrontation-phobic Booth. And in case you haven't noticed, today confrontation-phobic Booth and regular Booth are one and the same. Actually, that's the way it's always been. For all of his talk of making love and finding that one person, he's never been much of an openly emotional guy. But don't let Brennan know that. _

_Bit then again, she's not completely oblivious. She knows what's wrong and right. She knows the difference between the Booth she knows and the one she's in the car with. The one she's watched run background check's on his brother's girlfriend. The one who seems to think that logic has suddenly taken precedence in his world. That's her area. She's the brains, he's the heart, baby._

"_But, I'm anxious because I can't see any meaningful difference between my father and your brother's girlfriend. Can you explain that to me?" No, he can't. There isn't a difference. "It's a question of logic, so I'm just going to be quiet now while you work your way through it." He's been using logic against her. That's the offensive. But can he use it as a defensive? When the answer never comes, she's even more anxious. This isn't him. This isn't even her. This is pure rationalization. _

Facts are more reliable than love.

The woman has heard enough about love to say that she doesn't believe in it.

"_I know _I _can't wait for my own Prince Charming to come and sweep me off my feet." The three other girls can't see Temperance, but she can hear them. It's not her fault that they can't see her, sitting on the grass behind the tree with her chemistry homework, or that they fail to recognize that their loud voices carry very well over the flat field._

"_Oh, and I suppose you think that's going to be Brad?" Julie's voice is contemptuous and biting, and yet playful. She wonders if there is real venom behind it. She's never been good at knowing these things. _

"_Well, who else would it be, silly?" Sarah asks, her voice playful too. "I want romance, the horse-drawn carriage, the whole deal." _

"_And you think Brad would give that to you?" Julie's now got a mocking tone to her voice. But she smiles at her friend, and puts an arm around her. "If you really want romance, you should go for Ryan Wilder. I heard he took Betty Fields to that Italian restaurant and gave her a corsage and everything. And I _know_ he's had his eye on you." Sarah brightens up considerably at this thought. _

"_It's a long time 'till prom, anyway." Evvy says, and they all agree. A year and a bit is a long time to plan everything about the best night of their life._

_Temperance continues to take her notes on chemistry, all the while keeping tabs on their conversation. She resists the urge to go over there and point out how ridiculous they're all being. Love, romance, it's all fantasy. She knows she'll never be trapped in a suburban marriage, cleaning the house and making dinner for her 2.3 children. She's going to be someone. She's going to be a scientist. The best in her field, the best in the world. _

At least, that was what she had been saying.

But he's been teaching her.

There was a time, not too long ago, she had told three people that perhaps love comes before all of the chemical reactions she had dismissed the whole notion as before.

_It's a nice table, the one that they're at. Good material, well made, accented with nice chairs. But what makes it the best is the people around it. Jared and Padme at one end, no secrets, and Seeley and Temperance at the other end, and they're just completely cloaked in secrets. The two ends of the table are oppositely charged. It's what a scientist would call a dipole. This table has polarity. _

"_I'd like to make a toast." says Brennan, one member of one end. _

"_What is this?" Jared asks, on the other end. _

"_It's her new thing." Booth tells his brother. "She likes to make— She's really good at making toasts, though. M-Maybe we should get some champagne, though." Booth's still a little bit not himself. He's a little bit off. He hasn't been comfortable with the situation, and Brennan has been. It's odd. It's like their half of the table has its own dipole too. And whereas he's usually the positive side, today she's the one who is willing to accept things as they come, without questioning the wisdom of Jared's choices. She had even attempted to kick him under the table, for being so surprised at their upcoming nuptials. _

"_No, Jared is an alcoholic, Booth." she tells him. And he wonders if Padme knows that Jared's been down that path before. He wonders if she knows that alcoholism runs in the family. But of course she does, because—_

"_No secrets." Jared says. And Booth wonders what it would be like, to truly live with no secrets. To be open and honest about everything. To be able to talk about things when they're bothering him, and not push them to the back of his mind, to avoid pity and misunderstanding. To tell his Bones that he wants to be with her for the rest of his life._

"_When Booth and I first met, I didn't believe that such a thing as love existed. I maintained that it was simply brain chemistry." He remembers conversations with her on that topic, him telling her about the magic of two people becoming one, that there is someone out there for everyone. Someone out there for her. But now he knows that that person is him, has always been him. And he's acutely aware of this connection now, and struggles with it daily. But of course, he doesn't know that she's felt the same way for a long time. He doesn't know of the attraction she's had to push to the back of her mind every time she was in a room with him. And she hadn't known that it was love before. But now, they're mostly on the same page. Except for the whole secret thing. "But, perhaps Booth is correct; perhaps love comes first, and then creates the reaction. I have no tangible proof, but...I'm willing to accept Booth's premise." _

"_To love." Seeley Booth toasts, his voice low and quiet and just a little bit hopeful. _To you figuring out that I want to have you in my life, for the rest of my life. To you knowing what we have, and what we could be.

"_To love." says his brother. _

"_To love." agrees his fiancée._

_And finally, Brennan. "To love." She says. And though they don't know it, they're both thinking the same thing. That if they could just have what Jared and Padme have, love without secrets, without regrets, love without restrictions, then maybe everything would be alright. And Booth's thinking that one day, he'll have it with her. Because everything happens eventually. _

_And Brennan's thinking that she'll never have anything like this, because she cannot give up all of herself to someone. And that's what Booth would want, if he even wanted her. She wishes that she could just love him, without having the weight of the possibility of breaking him on her shoulders. But she _knows_ that's impossible. _

_Their glasses all clink together, and they all smile. This is a happy moment. It won't be happy for one half of the table, in a few months time, but in this moment, they're pretty stable. Not prone to reacting. Jared whispers "To love" to Padme before kissing her, and Booth complements Brennan on her toast. All is well, for now. But two people keeping secrets are dangerously reactive, more so when they are bonded together so powerfully. And when something comes flying into their paths, they will have no choice but to react violently._

And maybe that was wrong for her to say.

She was willing to accept the man's premise, about love.

But she cannot accept that he _knew_, that she was the one for him and he was the one for her.

"_Let's just - hear me out, alright? You know when you talk to older couples who, you know, have been in love for thirty or forty or _fifty_ years, alright, it's always the guy who says "I knew." I knew. Right from the beginning." But he couldn't have. You can't _know_. You just can't. There's— there's no evidence. Nothing to test, nothing to prove it with. You can't know. _

She was willing to say that love was something that existed beyond science, and maybe that's true, maybe that's not.

Just like the debate about fate vs. chance, there is no way of knowing.

But if love really is just a result of chemical reactions, release of hormones, subconscious responses to biological markers, how does that make it any less real?

How do synapses between neurons that weren't there before, that were created because there was something special about this person, how does science, how do any of these explanations grounded in what we can see with our senses make _love_ any less real?

_If there was a way to fix the ache in her heart, Brennan would do it in an instant. But since she knows that there is no physiological cause for the pain she experiences (and she's had herself checked out by several professionals), she knows that short of killing herself, there isn't any way to stop it. He's gone. He's really gone. Three months, training soldiers, so that they will be able to defend themselves properly. Temperance Brennan knows the meaning of heartache. It literally hurts, to get up in the morning and know that he isn't going to be there. And she can't help but think that if Seeley Booth is the only hope for the U.S. Military's survival, then there is something terribly wrong, because they shouldn't have to yank a man out of his place in life, to stop men from dying. Hodgins is right. They shouldn't even be over there. Booth should not be over there. But he is. Somehow, they had managed to convince him that he needed to be over there. They had managed to overcome his anger, and his fear, of returning to that, of returning to who he had been before she had changed him, and he had gone. She wasn't important enough to stay for. She had long suspected this. And yet, being right strangely did not have the comfort it usually offered her. Maybe because this time, she had wanted to be wrong more than she ever had before. That, apparently, was what love does to a person. And she knows not where it comes from, only that it is there, and that it feels more real than anything she has ever experienced. _

If you accept that love is just a delusion, result of subconscious things that you cannot control, how can you stop feeling it?

And there's that magic word again, control.

The woman needs control.

Needs it.

If this woman is in love with this man, and the love is a result of fate, which is uncontrollable, and the love itself is uncontrollable, then what good will it do her?

_Brennan walks into Cam's office. She's the very picture of professionalism, of a scientist. Her hair is tied back, to prevent it from becoming contaminated with remains. She's in her labcoat, to protect the rest of her. _

"_Do you have cause of death yet, Dr. Brennan?" Camille Saroyan asks, turning around.  
"No." she tells her, stepping just a bit closer. "I came here for a different reason." _

"_Fire away." Cam says, and Brennan doesn't ask her the meaning of 'fire away'. She knows the meaning of 'fire away'. It means go ahead. So she does._

"_As I'm sure you're aware, there has been an amazing find in the Maluku Islands."_

"_Uh, yes, I have heard about that." Cam says, in her, I-don't-quite-know-what-the-relevence-of-this-is-yet-but-I'm-sure-I'm-going-to-find-out-and-not-like-it voice. _

"_Well, I have, as the leading anthropologist in my field, naturally been asked to go to the dig site as part of the team."_

"_Ah." And this time she's using her and-now-I-do-understand-and-what-do-you-know-I-don't-like-it voice.  
"So I've come here to inform you that I will very likely be taking twelve months off to participate in the dig. I would suggest that in the meantime, you use Clark Edison as your FBI consultant."_

"_Hmm." Cam says. And yes, it's a loaded hmm._

"_That's it?" Brennan asks. "Don't you have anything more to say? Your most valuable expert in your forensics team is leaving for a year, and all you can say is 'hmm'?" And before, you were probably thinking that it was so weird, how Brennan could just talk about leaving for an entire year, leave the life that she's come to appreciate, and be so calm about it. But don't worry; it's all under the surface. She's trying as hard as she can to keep her loss of control under wraps. And it's been working flawlessly, up until now. See, she's been questioning a lot of things lately. She's been questioning her role in her friend's lives. And she's come to the conclusion that maybe her belonging somewhere has just been an illusion. Maybe she was right, all those years ago, that she wasn't meant to have a happy life. And if she really didn't belong, then people wouldn't care if she left. If she really wasn't loved, then people wouldn't miss her when she was gone. So you can understand her reaction to Cam's reaction. She's looking for validation. She's trying to see if she's indispensable, and not just as a professional. As a person. As Temperance Brennan._

_Cam doesn't speak for a few moments, opens her mouth, and then closes it again. _

"_Does this— this doesn't have anything to do with the Gravedigger trial, does it?" she finally says. Well, yeah. A little bit. The icing on the cake of her finally crumbling. _

"_Of course not, Dr. Saroyan. I fail to see why people have been so concerned with my well-being, after the trial. I am perfectly fine." _Right_, Cam thinks. _Fine as a pile of boulders.

"_Oh-kay, then. Well, I'll have to inform Clark of his upcoming change in duties, and, um…"_

_Brennan cuts her off. "I haven't made the decision yet, Dr. Saroyan. I am merely informing you of the possibility."_

"_Right. Well, I'm going to finish up with the tox screen, and you can, uh…"_

"_I will be continuing to determine cause of death." Brennan answers for her. _

"_Yes. You go do that." Cam turns around as Brennan walks out of the office. She sits down, and feels the beginnings of a headache coming on. This new development certainly isn't going to go over well, no, not at all. Nope._


	8. Chapter 7 Part 2

If the woman cannot dictate what happens to her as much as she can, if she cannot tell herself what to feel, what to think about, what to dwell on, in the middle of the night when she feels numb and empty and trapped, then what good were all of the measures she set up to keep herself from spiraling off?

The abandonment of the woman's parents plays a far larger role than many people realize.

Yes, before her family left her, she had been interested in science, in truth and logic and empiricism, and wanted to be a scientist someday.

_Temperance spends three weekends compiling her Career Day assignment. In the sixth grade, where boys and girls are just starting to discover each other, where the beach and the mall suddenly become far cooler than the playground, Temperance Brennan is an avid reader, in pursuit of knowledge and discovery. Her ratty copy of _Your Wonderful World of Science _is her best friend, her father's old microscope her closest companion. She doesn't care much for her classmates. They all seem far too concerned with the mundane, the banal, the benign. Her father's love of science and her mother's love of history have each found their way into her heart. She wants to be an anthropologist. She wants to study people. Temperance has already committed the French, English and American Revolutions to memory, as well as the legends of Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Norse and Native gods. She wants more than anything to go to Egypt to see the ancient tombs, but her family would never be able to afford it. She's content to sit in her room, perusing textbooks on the nature of civilization. _

_The time comes to present her assignment, and the other students give her a wide berth as she tries to fit her elaborate project through the narrow classroom door. This is nothing new. Temperance Brennan has been known to go over the top before. This looks quite spectacular, though. The girls who usually sit next to her admire the glossy colour photographs with wide eyes. She had saved up her allowance money for weeks, just to get all of the photos from her National Geographic blown up and printed out. Everything is meticulously neat and organized, from the type-written boxes of text below each of the pictures to the margins between each of the items on the board. _

"_So, who would like to go first?" asks the teacher. Martin Schultz, a boy who never tires of teasing her, has an answer ready. _

"_Tempe look's like she's going to explode if you don't let her go first." the boy says, rolling his eyes. She sticks her tongue out at him, just like Russ had taught her to do. _

"_Well, Temperance, do you want to go first?" She nods shyly, and the teacher gestures for her to take her project to the front of the classroom. Twenty eyes stare up at her from their spaces on the floor. _

"_My project… For this year's career day, I have chosen to focus on the field of anthropology." She's about to go on, but the teacher stops her. _

"_And would you like to explain to the class what anthropology is, Temperance?" She blushes, but manages not to duck her head like she usually does when she's embarrassed. Right. Explanations. Her father had told her that most of the kids didn't like to learn about the same stuff that she did. _

"_Anthropology is the study of people. The word comes from the Greek __anthrōpos__, which means human, and 'logia', which means study." The second half of her explanation goes sailing over her classmate's heads, but Fiona Meyers seemed to have grasped the basic concept._

"_So, anthropologists follow people around and study them?" she asks. Now that just sounds a little creepy._

"_Well, not exactly. There are—there are four main fields of anthropology. Physical or biological anthropology deals with the way humans behave using an evolutionary framework—" The class is also used to Temperance's huge vocabulary. When she did talk, which was very rarely, her speech was often fraught with terms her peers had no grasp of whatsoever. Even her teachers had trouble following her, sometimes. _

"_My uncle's says he does stuff with the way people behave, and he's a psychologist. Is it the same thing?" Tom Rand asks, cutting her off. She sighs. _

"_No, psychology is a science," She very subtly rolls her eyes at the word 'science' here. "That has a lot of guesswork and is based more on opinion than fact. Anthropology uses facts gathered from extensive observation, in order to—"_

"_So they _do_ follow people around and study them." Fiona confirms. _

"_If one is a cultural anthropologist, then yes, that may be a method of research. But an anthropologist is an observer, and never disrupts their environment of study." _And they certainly aren't creepy, _she adds in her head._

"_So they're like video cameras." Tom says. _

"_Well, I suppose, though a scientist is far more intelligent than a recording device…" She trails off, wondering where to go next. This isn't going nearly as well as she had hoped. They're probably going to go back to thinking that she's a freak._

"_Look, how about I show you what made me want to go into anthropology in the first place?" she asks. None of them reply, they just continue to look at her. She just sighs again, and carefully takes the tape off of one of the glossy photographs, removing it from the board._

"_Does anyone know what this is?" she asks, trying as hard as she can to act confident. She's spent weeks on this, going through what she would say, what she would show them, and now it was all flying out of her head. She isn't the social one, Russ is. She wishes he were here to help her. _

"_It's a mummy." Rick Jones says, looking at it excitedly. _

"_That's what your mom looks like?" Martin asks, laughing. Rick scowls at him._

"_Oh my god…" he whines. _

"_Rick…" the teacher says in warning. They aren't supposed to say the Lord's name in vain._

"_Sorry. But you don't know what a mummy is? They're dead people from Egypt who have been buried for thousands of years and they're all wrapped up in cloth and all of their flesh is gone and they're all gross and decaying and icky and—"_

"_Yes." Temperance says, cutting his rant off before he could go into too much graphic detail. "You seem to have grasped the basic idea of a mummy, although…Anyway, anthropologists get to travel around the world, looking at ancient remains, to see how people lived thousands of years ago. Another type of anthropologist, an archeologist, looks at artifacts—"_

"_What's an artifact?" Fiona asks. Temperance sighs yet again. _

_This time, the teacher answers. "Fiona, an artifact is an object used by people, like a stone hammer or a copper pot."_

"_Oh." she says. "I get it." _

"_Well, anyway, mummies were a very important anthropological discovery. We know a lot about the ancient world because of the exploration of Egyptian tombs." _

"_So, what you're saying is that anthropologists have taught us a lot about the way humans used to be, and why we behave the way we are now?" The teacher's looking at the clock, knowing that she has twenty more presentations to get through. If her luck turns, maybe Temperance will finish sometime soon._

"_Well, yes. But anthropology is so much more than that. For example, it can explain the dynamics of this classroom. You are the—"_

"_Temperance, I'd love to hear more, but I'm afraid we have to make sure the other kids have time to go. You understand, right?"_

"_Of course." she says. She gathers up her things, and sits back down. The rest of the presentations are short and simple. Some of her classmates want to be policemen. She resists the urge to point out that catching criminals isn't glamorous or easy, and that justice is rarely served. Some of her classmates want to be doctors. She resists the urge to say that very few of them have the intelligence necessary to grasps the finer points of human physiology and thus would likely fail as a physician. She keeps her mouth shut, like she always does. She's going to be a scientist, an anthropologist, and she'll have reasons to talk, among her real peers. She's going to be a scientist. _

But she was still full of hope and faith, in her family, in people, in the world, which she knew could be cruel, being ultimately a place she wanted to inhabit, a place full of possibility and wonder.

(she still sees some of that now, but she is more cautious, more cynical.)

And then everything left.

_She walks by herself down the sidewalk, carrying the groceries. It's the fifth time this week she's had to do the shopping alone, because Russ had been out doing _things, _and two adolescents, mysteriously missing their parents, have to eat sometime. She sees them at every turn, hears her mother laughing in the middle of the supermarket, tastes the chocolate éclair her father always bought her from the bakery. It's too much, right now. She sets her bags down, just five feet from a bench, and sits down on the soggy grass, not caring that the dew starts to soak her pants and bottom of her shirt. It's been three weeks, three weeks of crying until her chest hurt, three weeks of empty reassurances from everyone she knows. _No_, she tells herself, _no more. _They're not coming back, because it's been twenty-three days of this, and that's a long damn time for someone to disappear without telling their family. This is the life she has now, her and Russ, together, the two of them, dealing with what their parents had left them with. He's nineteen, she's fifteen, they can make it work, because he's out of school and has a job. They can make this work. Logic dictates that they can make this work._

Everything but the cold, hard facts.

Because facts cannot leave.

Facts are facts.

Logic, empiricism, truth, they still existed.

Her faith and hope and love had abandoned her.

So she embraced what she could experience through her senses, and discarded all the rest.

And then she lived through hell.

_She's cold, colder than she's ever been in her life. It's a harsh contrast to the heat of the dishwater of just five hours ago. She remembers everything about the incident, very clearly. How the dish had felt, slipping between her fingers far too easily. She had always been a clumsy child. That was the lesson here, that she was still a clumsy child. She remembers her foster father dragging her, by the collar of her faded green corduroy jacket, outside, around the front of the house. She remembers him speaking no words, but his eyes… they were so cold. Dark and cold, telling her that she was a disappointment. A failure. Useless. She remembers how much darker it had gotten, when he had locked the trunk of the car. She remembers, and the damp, musty smell of for what would become her prison for two days doesn't help her to forget it. This is what she is worth. An animal, lying unwanted in the back of a vehicle. She recites the names of all of the bones in her hands, willing them to stay still, to stop shaking. She repeats her mantra in her head, over and over and over again until she finally falls asleep. I will get out of here. I will go to school, and I will be a scientist. I will _be_ a scientist. _

And she lived through hell knowing that one day it would end, and if she just kept her head down and acted as good as she could, then she would escape.

Escape even further into the world that she _knew _to be real.

She could leave her hell, go experience higher education, become the person that she was supposed to be.

(But how did she come to the conclusion that she was supposed to be anyone? The woman (then just barely a woman) didn't believe in pre-determined anything.)

She absorbed facts, excelled at her studies, became successful.

_Michael leans over her, bare chest exposed and taut. Temperance reaches up and traces the muscles in his arms, and feels the bones underneath. _

"_Admiring my ulna?" he asks her, smiling. She replies with a kiss, returning the smile after their lips part. _

"_And your flexor carpi ulnaris muscle." she says, pulling him down to her. _

"_Ah, so you have been paying attention in class." he replies with a wink, peppering her neck with light kisses. _

"_You don't even teach that class, Michael, how would you know the extent of my attentiveness?" She arches her neck, giving him better access. _

"_I wouldn't. But I'm sure my star pupil hangs on to every word of every professor. Especially me." _

"_I wouldn't say that it's your words I hang on to…"_

"_Oh, Temperance, you naughty girl. After your final today, I'm afraid I'm going to have to punish you for that remark." A look of worry briefly flashes across her face. _

"_Don't worry, my future Dr. Brennan. You are going to do fine on this exam. Nay, you are going to exceed expectations. You're already at the top of your class, and I'm sure this will only do good things for you. You'll finish your thesis and have your doctorate before you know it." _

"_I'm sure I'll be well aware of it when I do receive my doctorate. And I _have_ finished my thesis." she says. He merely smiles, and gets himself out of the bed, slipping on a white robe. _

"_Where are you going?" she asks, eyes begging him to come back to bed. He just winks at her again. "You need to get up, get ready and go to that exam. I'm sure another round of sex wouldn't help with any of that."_

"_I can't help but disagree." she grins, also getting out of the bed. Her fingers trail up his chest, caressing his jaw. _

"_No." he says firmly. "After the exam. Then we can talk." Temperance reluctantly acquiesces and walks off to the shower. Today is the first of many big days. Everything in her life, the good times, reading the encyclopedia with her father, sitting on the pier, eating strawberry ice cream with her brother, and the bad times, sitting on curbs, trying to stay away from her foster home as long as possible, hiding under the bed while her foster father stumbled around drunk, looking to punish her, it had all led up to this. Graduating. Becoming a scientist. This was what she was meant to be._

(and now we realize that she thought she was supposed to gain as much knowledge as she could, become the best scientist that she could (and she was certainly capable of becoming a great scientist) because if she knew as much as she could about the world, then maybe it wouldn't surprise her anymore; maybe she wouldn't be caught off guard again, maybe she wouldn't lose everything she knew again)

She is a scientist.

Not a lover.

She isn't a gambler.

Because she decided to try and know as much about the world as she could, and she's able to look at a situation logically, and she weighed everything, and came to a conclusion.

It wasn't safe, she couldn't risk hurting him.

The woman is a scientist.

Not a gambler.

She cannot risk everything on a whim; she cannot do anything without thinking it over a thousand times, running scenarios on possible outcomes, because that is how she learned to deal with the world.

_Brennan's sitting on a bench, thinking; the thing she does the best. Angela comes over to join her. It's a day for thinking. Special Agent Seeley Booth is back in her life, and once again, she's dealing with death in a much more personal way. Shifting her paradigm. "Want to get a drink? Non-topical application. Glug, glug, Woo hoo!" Angela asks. But she notices the way Brennan isn't sharing her enthusiasm for another round at the bar. "Come on Sweetie…" she says, in a softer voice. And they begin to walk down the hall._

"_What if Booth's right. What if I'm only good with bones and lousy with people?" Brennan asks. And Angela's heart aches for her, as it always does, when she talks like this. It's rare, that Bren opens up to her about personal matters, so she appreciates this look into her friend's mindset. _

"_People like you." she assures her. And they do. It's just that the people who truly like her could be counted on one hand. _

"_I don't care if _men_ like me." Brennan says. _

_Angela chuckles. "Okay, interesting leap from people to men but I'm sure it means nothing." Of course, it means nothing. The only things that mean anything are facts. This falls under the realm of psychology. And—_

"_I hate psychology." the forensic anthropologist says, and for all of her degrees, she still sounds like a frustrated child. She chuckles too, though it's a much more disheartening chuckle. Brennan knows who she is, and what she's good at. Real, live people are not one of those things. "My most meaningful relationships are with dead people!" she tells Angela. But her friend, like a true friend, refuses to believe her. _

"_Who said that…" _

_Brennan sits down on a bench. "It's true!" she exclaims, and now Angela knows that this really is one of those rare moments. "I understand Cleo, and her bones are all I've ever seen. When she was seven, she broke her wrist probably falling off a bike and two weeks later, before the cast was even removed, she got right back on that bike and broke it all over again. And when she was being murdered, she fought back hard, even though she was so depressed she could hardly get up in the morning. She didn't welcome death, Cleo wanted to live." _

_It's hard, sometimes, when she can know so much, just from someone's bones. Because then it's like you're talking to them. They won't ever listen to you, but you can listen to them. Hear about the time they fell off of a roof after too much beer at a frat party, breaking their wrist in three places. Hear about the crippling degenerative bone disease they started suffering when they were just forty years old. Hear about the time their father hit them across the jaw so hard it snapped and dislocated. How can you be anything _but_ cold and detached, when faced with so much information? _

"_Honey, you ever think you come off kind of distant because you connect too much?" Angela gets it. Angela knows who she is inside, mostly. The important parts. If she were in love with Brennan (and even though she's been there, with other women, it had never crossed her mind), she would wait, until Brennan accepted herself, and her capacity to love. She would have known that patience, accompanied with hope, would have to do in the meantime. Angela had never been a gambler._

"_I hate psychology, it's a soft science." And again, Brennan sounds like that little kid. She hates psychology. She really does. Her social worker had insisted on schooling her in the various ways she was screwed up, and how that would impact the rest of her life. It was ridiculous. She had a plan._

_I know but, people are mostly soft." Angela says. And people _are_ mostly soft. That's the problem. That's where heartache and tragedy come in. It's an unfortunate quality, being mostly soft. _

"_Except for their bones." And maybe that's why Temperance Brennan is the bone lady. She wants to distance herself from the soft, the changeable, the things that can be easily bent and deformed and manipulated. Damaged. She's not damageable. She's hard, hard as bone, cold as ice. No one can hurt her. _

"_Yeah… You want some advice?" Angela asks. Just in case this is one of those times that Brennan wants her advice. And there are times. She still acts like she's new to the world. Despite all of her knowledge, there are things she cannot comprehend. And perhaps that's good. Perfection has no chips, no dents, no empty spaces to grab onto. It's alone, it's inaccessible. _

"_Glug, glug, woo hoo…" Brennan says, a little sarcastically, a little bitterly. But—_

"_Offer up a little bit of yourself every once and awhile. Just… tell somebody something you're not completely certain you want them to know." _

_And Brennan laughs at this. "God! That's the second time I've received that advice." Once from Booth, once from her. Maybe there's some merit in it. But then again, they're both heart people, and what could she learn from them?_

"_Well, you know I give great advice." Her friend comments. She really, really does._

"_I'm gonna have to push this to the next level." Brennan says. And she will. Because Cleo Eller deserves something better than what she had gotten. And she knows, from the place that some people call the heart, from the place that remembers what it was like, to not know what had happened to a loved one, that she was going to give Cleo Eller something better. Even though she was dead, even though in all likelihood she was just the pile of bones sitting on her exam table, she would give her justice. _

That is how she prevents herself from breaking again.

And yet, when she lies in her bed, after having weighed all of the possible outcomes of continuing the man's desperate kiss and telling him that the thing she wanted most in the world was to give them a try, she feels like she already has.

And what's worse is, the sensation of having broken is a thousand times worse.

Because he's been broken too.

(and that's what she tried to prevent, but him hurting now is better than in hurting later, it's the lesser of two evils, she weighed the options, she knows it was best)

In nature, when forces summate, the result is often a larger force than the sum of both the forces separately.

And she feels this.

She feels the break in what they had.

_Booth and Brennan, watching as their friends skip off into new life, into better life. But they're stuck there, in a place worse than Limbo. It's like the junction between middle and a turn for the worst. They can feel the balance tipping each way, bringing their hopes up and down. It's wearing on them. And the balance between them, it's tipping too. They can feel the weight of what they could and couldn't have, just out of reach, just looming in the distance. It's worse than the weight of a dream never realized. It's worse than what she had tried to prevent. _

"_I have this sense that everything's changing, Booth." She's scared. You can hear it in her voice, and maybe he can too. Maybe that's why his is falsely hopeful. He's the optimist, the positive side of their Booth-Brennan dipole, but it's been harder and harder to have hope lately. And this feels like one of the final nails in the coffin. So he tries to fight it. Like he should have fought her telling him that she didn't have his kind of open heart._

_"Well, not everything." he says. Not everything. The world still turns; the sky still becomes more and more blue as the summer approaches. "Look, we're still partners. Right?" And he can't think of a reason that they wouldn't be partners, right now. Not right now. For now, she isn't leaving, and neither is he. But he feels it pulling him, pulling her, pulling them away from each other and into… "And-and Taffet. She's-she's put away." He doesn't know what would have happened, had the Gravedigger not been convicted. And we wonder how long she would have run for, if Taffet had not been put away. How far away from Booth would have gone, seeking solace in what she knows. "I mean, you're feeling good about that, right?" There had been a moment, of happiness, of jubilation, knowing that justice had managed to be served, once again. She knows how hard that is, even in this country. Even when there are people like Booth around, trying to keep everything right._

_"You almost died, Booth." _Too many times_, she adds in her head. _Too many times_. "That can happen again. What if, next time, I can't get to you?" _What if that would kill me? What if I wouldn't be able to live, without you alive and safe and whole?  
_"It's not going to happen again." He's lost track of how many times he's said that, to how many people. And how many times it's become a lie. It will happen again, because that's the price of justice, that's the price of doing what's right, that's the price of being a man of strength, of an open heart, of an overwhelming capacity to love and believe in the goodness of people._

_"I envy your ability to substitute optimism for reality." Brennan says. And she does. But that's how he deals with this. She traps herself in a world of science and empiricism, and he pretends that there isn't anything wrong, that there is hope. And they're both lying to themselves, when they tell themselves that everything will turn out fine, as it always should. Because it hasn't, and it won't. Not yet._

_"You know what? Maybe you just need to take some time off. Go to a beach. Lay in the sun." And he doesn't mean run; he doesn't mean go halfway around the world for three months, knee deep in genocide victims. But—_

_"I might need more than a little time." And he knows what she means. More than a little time means that she doesn't know if she can keep doing this. Death and murderers and sadness. She doesn't know if she can keep on pretending that none of it affects her._

_ Because it does. Every case, every story, every face she sees hidden in a skull._

_"Don't make any decisions about your future right now." Booth says._

_"I'm just saying…" But she's not just saying. She's thinking, and that's dangerous_

_He won't let her leave. He can't. "You know when a dentist gives you anesthetic and tells you not to operate any heavy machinery or make any important decisions within 24 hours? Alright, this case was bigger than a root canal. Come on, let's just go back inside and have one more drink. Come on. Just one." But she's not ready for just one anything. One drink will turn into three. One month away will turn into six, will turn into a year, until she's sure she's back with her first love and wouldn't be able to let go.  
His hand reaches for hers, but they don't connect. It's dangerous, right now, because they're both so reactive and unstable. One touch, and she won't be able to let go. One touch, and she's sure to destroy the both of them._

_"No." she tells him. And there are a thousand things that could have come after that no. No, I'm not ready to let myself love so much. No, I _do_ feel everything, no, I'm not alright, thanks for not asking, no, I feel love for you more than I've ever felt anything before, so don't let anything convince you otherwise. But she sticks with: "I'm tired, Booth. I-I-I'm going to go home." She's tired. That's true. But she doesn't know where home is. She thinks that it probably isn't her apartment, because she's only been feeling lonely and worthless there lately. She thinks that maybe Booth is the closest thing to home for her right now, and she knows that she can't be anywhere near him. She's caustic. She destroys everything in her path. __She hasn't met a person who hasn't lost something from having known her._

"_Alright. Come on. Let's-we'll get you in the cab." Booth says. And he's still sounding cheerful. But he's not. He's feeling the slip, more than the pull now, the slip of control that she's always been so afraid of. And then the cab pulls up, and he starts to feel something else too. "I know, it's-it's been a long, long day." One of the longest of his life. One that had felt like twelve years, and yet had passed in what seemed like twelve seconds. "Alright, get in there, alright?" And she does. The new feeling intensifies, until he feels like he's on fire, but not the good fire. Not the fire of tequila, of rain. And he begins to remember. "Hey. I'll see you tomorrow, alright?" Tomorrow's all he can hope for. Tomorrow isn't so ridiculous to hope for, is it?_

_But she doesn't respond. And the ache deepens, the feeling intensifies, the fire burns until he's _knows_ that he's been here before. He closes the door. _

_And watches, as the taxi drives away._

_He's been here before._

_She turns around, and looks at him._

_It's like a knife, sliding easily between his ribs, scraping them on the way out._

_It's like a premonition, and he can believe in that, because he believes in things like that._

_He believes in fate. _


	9. Chapter 7 Part 3

**The second to last part. Watch out for the fourth and final part to this chapter tomorrow. And then on to the real finale!**

Even though she cannot see, hear, smell, touch, or taste it, she _knows_ that something has happened to their partnership.

And this is just one of the many steps towards acceptance of things beyond the basic five senses.

Maybe the man's gut feeling, his ability to see people's intentions, maybe these really are just the result of his ability to read subconscious clues.

Maybe his gut is really just his brain giving him physical symptoms of unease in a situation he knows (subconsciously, always subconsciously) is going to turn out badly.

We cannot know.

Like the fate versus chance debate, there are things we cannot learn about through the scientific method.

Like love, if these special senses are really just the result of subconscious operations, a summation, if you will, of the five ordinary senses, plus the extraordinary machine we call the human brain, how does that make them any less real?

_They're in the interrogation room, with yet another murder suspect._ "_These fractures to your 2nd and 3rd metacarpals in your left hand, they are caused by being struck." Brennan says. It's science. Hard to argue with science.  
"That ain't smart." Booth adds.  
"How did you get my x-rays?" Collins asks. It's a reasonable question.  
"The judge decided that we have reasonable cause. Pulled a warrant. So why would the Head of Security reach into a moving chicken plucker?" And that's a pretty reasonable question too.  
"8 years, I worked in that hell hole. _Why_?" And he takes a photo of his wallet. _

_Brennan looks at it. "Your wife?" she asks.  
"We were going to have kids. But she got sick because she worked at Cluckstens." _

"_Did you have evidence of that?"  
"That's exactly what Nick asked." Collins says. "When we move into the next county, she got better. That's evidence enough, if you ask me. All I wanted from Nick, was gas allowance." Just a gas allowance. That was all he had been asking for. Nothing drastic, nothing crippling. Completely reasonable.  
"And he said no." Booth says. He understands. Family has to come first. He'd do anything to protect his family. But something tells him that it had all been an accident. He doesn't get the feeling of a killer from this guy.  
"We shoved each other a bit, I guess. His tie got stuck into the chicken plucker. I reached in, I tried to save him, and that's how my hand got broke!"  
"You didn't intend to kill him?" Booth asks. That's all they need to know, that this all had been a misunderstanding. He doesn't want to put this guy through any more grief.  
"No!" Collins answers. "God, no." And Booth thinks_, God, that must have sucked for killing a guy, and having to live with it, keep it a secret._ He feels pretty bad for the guy.  
"Oh okay, I understand."  
But Brennan doesn't understand. She isn't looking at what she feels about this guy, she's looking at the facts. And the facts don't lie "Booth. I know you trust your gut, but you're wrong this time." she tells him. And a chill goes through her. This is Booth, the guy who could pick the guilty one out of a line up of twenty. He's always been the heart guy, the feelings guy, and even though she knew that logically, he had to be wrong sometime, it still scares her. "The directionality of these fractures show that your hand was on Nick Rabin's face when it went into the machine." she tells Collins. "You pushed him, you killed him." She and Booth look at each other. And now he knows that she was right, and he was wrong. But he wasn't supposed to be wrong about this stuff. He was supposed to know what was true, and what wasn't. What the hell was wrong with him?_

_He hears Collins talking.  
"I drive 68 miles to work everyday, and all I wanted was gas allowance. I worked there 8 years! Just a gas allowance, so my wife can stay healthy." _

_He had been wrong. His gut had been wrong. How much more of himself had he lost?  
_

If reality is really grounded in the things that we can see, hear, feel, smell, taste, and there is no after life, no divine retribution, no divinity, nothing but the way we experience the world around us, then what is so terrible about that?

But the man needs his faith in something beyond science in order to live with himself.

Because he's done some things he isn't proud of.

_The sky flashes, a burnt orange that matches the way his face feels. The clouds of smoke are lit up for a quarter second, before fading back into the night. Booth feels someone move beside him, running towards him more quickly than he can step away. His knife finds its way into his side, and the man falls. But it isn't a man. It's a boy, no more than sixteen, outfitted in a uniform that is too large for him. The whistling of grenades sounds above him, and he moves, forgetting the boy. His mind is hyper-aware of his surroundings, but his thinking is subdued. There isn't time to wonder at what he has done. He has to move with the rest of the group, if he's going to get to the target. His boots step through the mud, splattering the bodies that litter the ground. He can't think about that. The only thing in his mind is the face of the man he's to kill. His sniping skills are unparalled; he's the man for the job. _

But if there's a greater purpose, if he's working for the greater good, if fate is dictating that he and the woman will end up together, because everything happens eventually, then all he's been doing has been towards something that is greater than the sum of its parts.

And that can let him look back on his life and forgive himself.

And the man needs that.

Because he's done some things, and he isn't proud of those things.

"_What do you want to name him?" Rebecca asks him, lying in her hospital bed. Her hair surrounds her face, in a half-halo, and her face looks flushed against her blue hospital gown. Their son sits in her arms, sleeping for now. He's beautiful._

"_I—wow. You're _actually_ going to let me name him?"_

"_Of course I am, Seeley, we agreed that you'd get to. Or do I need to remind you why—"_

"_No!" he says hurriedly. No need for any of the nurses to hear anything funny._

"_So, what's the name?" He ducks his head slightly, blushing under her smiling gaze. Even though they've been arguing for months, this moment is happy for them. Peaceful. _

"_You're gonna, you're gonna think it's stupid."_

"_Oh come on, I'm sure there's nothing worse than Seeley." she teases. "You're not naming him Seeley Jr. or Seeley the Second, are you?" He sends a nervous smile back to her. _

"_Well…?"_

"_Parker." he says quickly. "Parker Booth." Her face falls, and she looks at him sadly._

"_That's a beautiful name, Seeley." Rebecca tells him. _

"_Yeah." he whispers hoarsely, suddenly out of air. He's back there, with Teddy Parker spotting for him, while he's sniping another target. He's back there, carrying the young soldier on his back, running like he can't get tired. He clears his head, coming back to the present. "Yeah."_

"_Thank you." she says. "Do you want to hold him?" He nods stiffly, and reaches down for the bundle. His son is warm, his skin dry and soft. Booth wonders how on Earth he, a person so damaged and angry and sinful, could have helped to create something so perfect. He wonders how God could create such innocence, such beauty, and yet let humans be so cruel to each other. But he is grateful for this small miracle. He is grateful for the life that he does have, and that he is not lying in a nameless grave somewhere, far from the country he loves. He is grateful for life._

But he is proud of the work that he's done with the woman, bringing killers to justice, bringing peace to their families.

He needs to continue to do that work, because without it, he might just lie awake at night, try to hold onto his faith, and actually lose it.

And everything he's ever done will have been for nothing.

Because then there will have been no greater good, no grand plan, no fate pulling the strings together, just life and reality and all of the terrible things he's done.

_He sits in his bed, staring up at the ceiling. He wishes it was raining outside, because then he would have a reason to feel so down. The last case… He remembers the feeling of losing faith, and struggling to find it again. He's been through it a thousand times, and yet this… It had comforted him, knowing that it hadn't been John F. Kennedy, in the lab, bearing scrutiny from the smartest bunch of squints in the world. He's glad, that his government wasn't the one cloaked in secrets and betrayals that Hodgins likes to describe. He had fought for a reason, in all of those places. His country was the best in the world; the United States of America was a model for the rest of the world to follow. Democracy, freedom, justice, that's what he believes in. He believes in the good of people, the righteousness of God, and above all else, love. But this case, it had shaken him. And until Brennan had shown him the proof in the pudding, he had almost lost his faith. _

_But he's still here now, questioning his beliefs. He wonders why he believes so strongly in God and Jesus and everything he had been taught, growing up. Brennan would say that there was no evidence, and she would be right. There is nothing proving the existence of his god. But he believes, with his whole heart, that there is justice in the universe, and that one day, if he is a good person, if he resists temptation, he will go to Heaven. That is what keeps him going, when he sees death and murder and sadness. That there is good, and one day, he will know it. _

All of the chances not taken, things not said.

Lives not lead.

The man needs his faith.

And the woman needs her own belief system.

And if the man believes that fate has brought the two of them together, and the woman believes that she cannot feel _enough_ love for the man, then there will be a conflict.

There _has_ been a conflict.

_Kiss From A Rose comes floating through the speakers. Booth's just suggested that they go get some punch, because this is the last dance he wants to dance with her, like this, when it will mean nothing to her and a thousand painful things for him. But she says "Oh! Can we dance? Booth?"_

"_What?" he asks her. She doesn't want to _dance_. That would be violating the wall between them, and she wouldn't want that to happen, would she?_

"_It's Seal." It's Seal, and that explains everything. That's a good excuse, it's Seal. But that's not really her reason. It's Seal, and she's never danced like that with a man, here, in high school, where she had felt nothing but animosity from her peers and hatred at 'home'._

"_Well, it's a slow song." Booth says. And that's supposed to explain everything he wants too, because maybe it _will_ be too painful for him, for her to be that close to him, and yet metaphorically so far. _

"_Oh, I'm sorry. Is that too difficult for you?" She's concerned, concerned as she always is about him. You just don't always see it on the surface. She's had years to practice hiding it. But here, when all of the memories came flooding back, it's hard to keep her veneer on. _

_He hesitates. "Oh, I just don't want any misunderstandings, here, that's all, Bones."' No misunderstandings, because they've never had any of those. They always know what the other is feeling, because partners tell each other everything. "I mean, ya know, we, uh, opened a door that neither one of us wants to walk though."_

"_I know." says Brennan. "I- I just was asking to dance. Because I remembered the song. I'm sorry." No secrets, because they're partners. But he doesn't know, how much she'd been through, in the few short years since her parents had left. And she doesn't know just how hard it is for him, being here with her, as her husband. "Nah. You know what? Hey, it's just a dance." Just a dance. Just a dance. Just two people, close together, holding each other up. It's Seal. That has to mean something, right? "It's your reunion. Okay. Let's do it. Let's dance. Hey. Come on." He will do this for her, because he loves her, so intensely that he'll try to put up with the pain. It's her reunion. It's Seal. It's just a dance. _

_When Brennan moves towards him, her hand wraps around his neck, to get close to him. Just like a slow dance, to Kiss From A Rose, is supposed to go. But he can't do that. She gets pushed away, until his hands are on her waist and she's far away from him. Farther than they stand when they talk to each other. And he's not considering how weird it must look to everyone else, Bobby Kent pushing his wife, Morticia, the creepy girl, away. He's just thinking that maybe he can't actually do this. _

"_Okay." Okay. This is good. He _can_ do this. She's not too close. He can pretend that this means nothing. He can pretend that this is one of the things that mean nothing. _

"_Oh." And she laughs, a little out of place. "Why are you so far away?" But she knows why. He's far away now, because he needs to be. He needs to be far away from her. She's broken his heart. _

"_You know, just keeping room for the Holy Spirit. That's all." Yeah, because when he danced with women, there was always room for the Holy Spirit. Room between them, in the back seat of a car at a drive-in movie, steaming up the windows. He's a different man now, though. Different from having known her._

_He looks over at Mr. Buxley. The man just gives him the creeps. "Yow!" he says. And Brennan turns, and sees the knife he's holding. _

"_Why are you all so suspicious of Mr. Buxley?" she asks. She doesn't know how he can care so much for her, believe in her so much, when she had been just like her janitor. She was creepy. She liked dead things. Everyone avoided her. She's not a person you can have a relationship with. That's just the way things are. _

"_Why? Because, you know, he's psycho, he has access to the shop and he has a huge knife." Duh. _

_But Mr. Buxley takes the knife and cuts a rope. And all of the stars hanging from the ceiling come down, closer to everyone, and applause is heard. She gets it. People like them, they're only liked when they're useful. Otherwise, they're just in the way. She wonders how long she'll be useful to Booth. _

_He looks at the stars. It's really quite pretty. "That is so cool." He looks at Brennan, and is surprised to see her eyes glassy. "Bones, you're tearing up." He doesn't like to see her unhappy. His job is to protect her, from danger and hardship, and heartbreak. He wishes he had been there, when her peers had been so cruel. But then he remembers Harlan Kinney and everything he hadn't done for the boy, and is grateful that he had become a part of her life at the right time. _

"_This is the prom that I never got to go to." Brennan says, a little choked up. And he smiles, moving closer to her. If this is what he has to do, to let her be happy, then he'll do it. He'd do anything for her. She moves in close, almost as close as they had been, when he had kissed her, and wraps her arms around his neck. Her head finds its way onto his shoulder. _

_Booth isn't ready for this. He isn't ready to be so close to her, and be so far. But he accepts her, he accepts the dance. And though he struggles with the bittersweetness of it all, he does relax. And they're both content for the moment, in each other's arms. _

_It's Seal. _

_It's just a dance._

_It's one of the things that means nothing._

_But it isn't just a dance._

_It's Seal._

_This is one of the things that means everything. _

But we have to remember that these two people are stronger together than apart.

_The case, it's about a serial killer. Something big. And Bones, well… "Listen," Booth says. "This whole serial killer, its not gonna be our usual case." _

"_Why?" Brennan asks. _

"_Why? Because it's big and he's bad." That doesn't seem like much of an answer. Then again, despite all of the years she's known him, Booth doesn't always make sense to her. _

"_I don't see what difference that makes!" she says. _

"_Cause you have to slow down, right." he tells her. "Take a breath. You have to realize that this is not a sprint, it's gonna be a marathon. Marathon, Bones, coming from the Greek meaning 'really really really long run'." And yes, he's expecting—_

"_It's not how the word 'marathon' originated." Typical Bones. But that's why he loves her. Not that he really knows what that means yet. _

"_Look, there's something else I gotta know, and it's important. We solid?" _

"_You and me? Yeah!" Of course they are. They haven't been not solid for a very long time. _

" _No, not just you and me. Squints, too. Zack is back for good. Angela and Hodgins have their head back in the game. Cam, she's locked in."_

"_Why are you asking me this?"_

"_Because." Because he needs to know that she's in this, that she isn't going to leave. He had almost lost her. He needs to make sure she's in this for good. "You and me – the centre." _

_She nods. _

"_And the centre must hold." _

"_Right. So, are we gonna hold?" he asks her. _

"_Yeah. We'll hold. We're the centre." And the centre _must_ hold. It must. Otherwise, everything comes crumbling down behind it. And they can't let that happen. _

_Not until they have to._

"_The centre." Booth repeats. And she holds out her hand, for him to take, and he takes it cautiously. "Ha ha." he says._

"_What's funny?" she asks. Probably another Booth thing she'll never understand. _

"_Ha, I though you were going to kiss my hand again."_

"_I did not kiss your hand." she says. "You put it over my coffee cup."_

"_Huh, it felt like you kissed it."_

"_No."_

"_No?"_

"_Nope."_

We have to remember that there is a reason that they have stuck together all these years, why they are the centre that must hold.

_He and Gordon Gordon are in the kitchen. The case is solved, he should be feeling good, and yet… There is something off. There's been something off for a while now. "So we found most of the gold coins in the victim's brother's crawl space, I mean most of them, not all of them." he tells Wyatt. _

"_Ah, so the oldest murder of them all, eh? Brother slays brother, Cain and Abel." the former psychiatrist comments. He's as casual and British as ever, but he's wearing a chef's clothing. Booth's still getting used to it. _

"_Doc, tomorrow morning I gotta be on the firing line at seven am sharp, so you have to fix my brain damage." Booth tells him. And he's serious. He hates all of the missing pieces. He hates not being able to do his job as the man he was before. He hates being in crippling love with his partner and being completely aware of it. The dream. The dream had opened up windows into things he's never looked at before, not properly. He's always been in love with her. He knows that now. He knows the feeling of when he had first laid eyes on her. That was love. All of the things he had said before to her, he hadn't really known. But now he does. Now he does. It's what he feels for her, every morning when he gets up, every case, when he sees her working towards justice, same as him. Love._

"_You haven't got brain damage!" Wyatt exclaims. Goodness, how dense could these people get?_

"_Ah, Gordon Wyatt okay, they took out a brain tumor the size of a melon ball out of my head; I can't shoot straight; I can't tell if people are lying; I have to get dummy books just to do things. I'm at a complete loss with stuff." Gordon Gordon just uncorks a bottle. _

"_But not as a result of brain damage." he says. "When you were in a coma, you got a glimpse of another world."_

"_Right, and how does that help me aim my gun?" Booth knows all of this already. Painfully, acutely aware of it. He and Chef Wyatt sit down._

"_Temperance Brennan." Wyatt says. And that truly is the answer to everything, at least for him. "You're in love with her." And Booth look up in surprise, because apparently he hasn't been hiding it as well as he had thought. "You're building a world around her, a family."_

_No. No, Gordon Gordon. Not possible. They are two different, different people. Yin and Yang in the workplace. _

"_We're not compatible." Booth tells him. "She sees the world one way, I see it the other way." _

"_No of course, it's absolutely ludicrous the idea of you together, but the heart chooses what it chooses, doesn't it?" That's what's so fantastic about love. It's unpredictable, raw. Sure, you can try and choose who you fall in love with. But it never turns into what _they _have. People are mostly soft. Mostly able to be hurt, mostly able to be crushed. Love can break you. Love can put you back together. "We don't really have any say in the matter."_

_But Booth knows the truth. He's the gut man, and he knows what's going on, with people. It follows that he would know what's going on with his Bones. "She doesn't love me." he says. Wyatt needs to understand this. Booth see-saws between fantasy and the harsh reality, and getting his hopes up again won't help him. "I would _know_ if she loved me." _

"_May I counsel patience on this front." Gordon Gordon says. "Hope and patience." It will have to do, for now, until Booth realizes why Brennan is so guarded with her feelings for him, with her heart. With his heart._

We have to remember hope and patience.

And we have to remember why these two people were so broken in the first place, and we have to wait for them to fix themselves.

Fix each other.

Fix what they've broken between them.

Because they are the centre, and the centre must hold.


	10. Chapter 7 Part 4

**Well, here it is, the final part! Thanks again to everyone who has read, reviewed, favourited, put on alert, ect.! It's been a fantastic, incredibly long journey. **

**Any final comments would be greatly appreciated.**

**And a Happy Bones Day to everyone in advance for tomorrow! **

Right now, if they tried to become what they want, one would be discontent, because she doesn't believe in all of the things that the man does.

_How can he know? How can Booth just _know_, and tell her that he does, tear down the walls, try to break into her and turn her into someone she's not? She's not a lover. Brennan doesn't_ feel_ things, she observes and assesses. And she's learned that she does love him, but _knowing_, that isn't something that she can devise an experiment for. The only thing to do… No. She's decided that the risk is too great. She can't test their ability to stay together for thirty, forty, _fifty_ years, because that _is_ the test. There's no way around the knowledge that there isn't a way to predict their outcome. Too many variables, too many things they could lose, destroy, take away from each other. She doesn't believe in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. She doesn't believe in absolution from sin, forgiveness from God, passage to Heaven. She doesn't believe in Judgment Day, or the Rapture, she doesn't believe that there is divine punishment or justice. There is just the world she lives in, the world she can sense. Reality. No delusions, no groundless beliefs to keep her afloat. Fate does not dictate what happens to her. She controls her world. And she is choosing to let him go. He deserves so much more than the shaky devotion she could give him. She will not live a lie. _

She would feel wrong, living this life with him, acting like she_ knew_ thirty, forty, fifty years would happen with him.

And there's been nothing but missed chances, misunderstandings, skewed circumstance.

_Three months away from his family. Three months, training Rangers, teaching them how to kill and not be killed. Three months, wondering about her, wondering how she had been, without him. Three months, wondering what state his world would be in when he got back to D.C. He would have Parker. He would have his job. He would have Sweets, following him around, asking him to come to therapy, alone. Because his Bones wasn't there. She had left him. And then he had left. _

_And then he came back._

"_Agent Booth." calls a voice from behind him. He recognizes it as Andrew Hacker's. He's been in the Hoover for precisely one minute and twenty-six seconds, and already someone needs him. He wonders what it had been like, with him gone. How many murders have gone unsolved. But he's not allowed to think about that. He had given many men essential skills for survival on the battle field, so those are a few more lives saved. Perhaps that will tip the cosmic balance sheet in his favour. Booth refuses to think of the lives that would be lost as a result of his soldiers being so efficient at killing. _

"_Assistant Director Hacker." he says, turning around to shake the man's hand. "How's it been around here?" _

"_Not as good as it's been with you, I'm afraid." the other man replies. He looks around the hallway that they're in, then presses the button for the elevator. "Your replacement has been having some problems dealing with your squints." _

"_My replacement?" He's been gone three months, not three years. Surely…_

"_Well, not permanently." Hacker explains. "At least, I hope not permanently…" he adds under his breath. _

"_What was that last part?"_

"_Look, it's really nothing. But Dr. Brennan has been most uncooperative in dealing with Agent Banks, and after June's scare out in Ocean City…"_

"_What!" No. Bones was in Indonesia, with Daisy, digging up ancient remains for Very Important Academic Study. She wasn't in D.C. He would know, if she was in D.C._

"_Surely you've heard about the Gravedigger's attempt on her and her father's lives…" They're supposed to be partners. He remembers when they had been 'dating', how often the agent's name would slip into conversation, not disappearing without forceful prodding on his part. Surely they've been communicating, these past months. But then again, he remembers how cold she had been, in regards to Booth, since he had left. He remembers how she refuses to talk to anyone about anything other than their cases, and even that was reluctantly. She is angry and vindictive towards Agent Banks, and the conviction rate had suffered. As much as he hated to admit it, Booth's departure had affected a lot of people. Hacker's just glad he's back._

"_No." Booth growls, a look of anger on his face. "No, I did not hear about that." He spits the last part out through heavily clenched teeth. This, this was someone's fault. He hadn't wanted to leave her. She had left him, not the other way around. She's the one who runs away, he isn't the coward. _

"_Well, I don't see why you wouldn't have. Surely you had internet access…"_

_Yeah, he had internet access. Checked his emails every day, waiting for a reply from her. Nothing. Nothing. How could he have known? He didn't check up on news from home. It had hurt too much. He had been cut off from the outside world, save the occasional message from his son. _

"_What. Happened." he manages to grunt out. Hacker's looking quite alarmed, and rightly so. By now he's figured out that something funny had happened between the two partners. And that Booth's reasons for leaving hadn't been entirely patriotic._

"_Heather Taffet had a contact on the outside. OK, well, several. And one of them was in the military." he pauses, making sure that Booth isn't going to explode anytime soon. It looks safe for now. He continues. "He put in the request for you, Agent Booth, to get you out of the way. Taffet knew that it would be much harder to get to Brennan with you here. It was quite unlikely that you would actually accept the offer, so I don't quite know what she was thinking. She must have been desperate to get back at you." _

"_What happened next?" Low voice, eyes dark, staring at him intensely. War Booth. He's been at war, for the last three months, fighting incompetence and agony, and it's showing._

"_A hit man's sitting in an apartment above an ice cream shop. She and Max Keenan are walking along the boardwalk in Ocean City, Maryland. The guy's been tapping her phone, and figures out they had plans for this on a Thursday, June the 18__th__. Family camping trip, with her brother Russ and his girlfriend and two kids. But Max notices something out of the corner of his eye. A curtain moving in a distant window. A wasp had entered the building, and had stung the hit man. He's allergic, not severely, but enough that he needs to take the shot, now, before he starts itching like crazy. But Max notices the curtain, so he keeps his eye on it. He sees something move again, and doesn't hesitate to throw him and Temperance over the boardwalk, and it's high tide, so they fall into the ocean. The CSIs don't recover the bullet, but we catch the guy."_

"_Was she hurt?" That's all that's going to matter for now, that she was ok._

"_She and Max were fine. Just a couple panicked onlookers and a very alarmed ice cream parlour owner." Relief. No harm had come to his Bones. He doesn't speak for a while, still reeling in emotion. _

"_So she was here, the whole time I was gone." Now that he knows she was okay, anger comes flooding back in._

"_Yes." Hacker confirms, having the sense not to say anything else. _

"_Right." Booth said, seething. He remembers her saying, very clearly, that she was going on this dig. They would finish their case, she would go to this conference over in Europe for two days, and then come back to see Angela and Hodgins off. And he would be gone the same day. He had expected Angela and Hodgins to tell her. He had expected a proper goodbye. Not leaving without having seen her for nearly a week._

"_Right." he repeats again, pushing past the other man. He walks out of the building faster than he's ever walked before, in his best physical condition since the coma because of the army. People who look at him look away quickly, for he wears the mask of a madman. He's angry. He's really angry. Angry, angry, angry. Next thing he knows, Angela and Hodgins hadn't gone on their yearlong honeymoon after all, and everything in D.C. was how it had been before. Except for him. He's seen things, more things, and now he's bitterer than ever. Heartbroken. Heart-crushed. _

_Hacker doesn't stop him, when he leaves. He hadn't become Assistant Director just by having superior administration skills and an impeccable sense of what tie to wear on what occasion. Okay, maybe that was some of it. But he also had very good people skills, and he knows Booth. Something's happened._

If fate has had anything to do with them, the man and the woman, then it hasn't been doing a very good job.

But maybe that's the plan.

Maybe they need to recognize that through everything, the frustration, the hopelessness, the heartbreak, it's all been worth it.

Because it's worth it, to love.

_He's been trying to track her down all day. Not at her office, not anywhere in the Jeffersonian, not even in Limbo. Not in her apartment, not in the diner, not at Founding Fathers, not even at Wong Foo's. Not anywhere. Finally, he had called her father, and he had told her that she was in a capoeira class. More self-defense. More walls. _

_He waits for a half-hour outside the little studio. And when she comes out, the only indication she gives that she sees him is a half-second of wide-eyed shock, before she pushes right past him and walks to her car. He runs after her, and blocks the door. _

"_Agent Booth, what is it that you want with me?" It stings, really, really hard, to hear her refer to him so formally, but he wants to push on, keep going, try and try and try because he's learned that giving up just made things suck even more. He's learned the hard way._

"_Bones, don't give me that bullshit. Agent Booth me all you want, but I'm going to talk to you like you're the woman I've known for six years. And don't you dare act like we weren't best friends, because we were. You can't have decided to forget all of that." He thinks he sees a crack in her resolve, but then again, it might have just been a trick of the light. Everything he knows about her might just have been a trick of the light. His entire world might just have been a trick of the light._

"_Fine." she says, and maybe it's the hardest thing in the world to keep the tears out of her voice. But she will not, _cannot_ cry tonight. Not over him. She moves him aside, but unlocks the door to her car for him, and allows him to get into the passenger seat. Booth doesn't even think about asking to drive. She doesn't speak. She doesn't need to. He can hear everything she's saying with her body loud and clear._

_The drives passes in sticky, viscous silence, and he feels like he's slowly being suffocated by it. This is what they're reduced to. What they were, after everything had gone wrong the first time. And he flashes back to the second time he had watched her leave in a taxi. The premonition. It hasn't been a year, but she's even colder now. Like she's tasted love, tasted the blood in her mouth from it being yanked away. So much has happened. So much hasn't._

_He doesn't dare speak, even though there's so much he wants to ask her, tell her. He needs to know, why she hadn't left. Why she had been avoiding him. Why she had requested that she keep her current partner, and never work with him again. If Zack had been her assistant, he wouldn't have allowed in his calls. But so much has changed since that first meeting. _

_They arrive at her apartment. She gets out and strides off to the front door, not waiting for him to get out first. But he does so quickly, not wanting her to disappear again. She turns on her heels quickly, locks the doors by remote, and turns around again. He's supposed to follow her. He gets that much. She's walking very quickly, but he's able to keep up. And when they get to her apartment, she unlocks the door and goes inside, leaving it open for him. _

"_Bones—"_

"_I don't want to talk to you." she says, voice low and dangerous. Brennan turns around, eyes glittering in the small amount of moonlight that the space between the curtains lets in. _

"_Bones, just hear me out! I didn't want to—"_

"_You left me!" she screams, and he takes a step back. "YOU LEFT ME!" He can't remember her ever being this upset before. Everything that had been holding her back, all of these months, it seems to have flooded the gates. It's spilling out. Tears on her face, cheeks red and flushed, angry eyes. _

"_I didn't mean to!" he shouts right back, stepping closer to her, ignoring the warning signs. "YOU left ME!"_

"_No, I DIDN'T. I was right here, in D.C., all summer, taking Parker to the beach, playing dominos with Pops, even going out with Rebecca a few times, everything YOU were supposed to do! You have a family, Booth! A family, that you left, so you could relive your glory days as a sniper—"_

"_No." he says. "_No_." But she ignores him._

"_Serving your country! But that's—that's what _we_ do. We catch—together we catch killers. Why did you go? You said, you _said _that you would never go back to the army."_

"_What would have been here for me, Bones, with you off halfway around the world, running again? You—you don't understand how much of my life you are. I couldn't have stayed."_

"_I _didn't_ go to Indonesia." she tells him, seething. She's right in his face now, spitting fire from her eyes. Icy blue, almost turquoise, brighter than he's ever seen them. "I wrote you a letter. I put it on your desk, in your inbox, where you would see it. It had my name on it. It was addressed to you. You said you were going fishing with Parker, the day before I left for the conference. So I wrote it, just in case…" She starts to tear up. Stupid, out-of-control emotions. They have never helped her. Never. "Just in case you were considering your offer, but you weren't supposed to! You said that they would never get you to go back."_

"_They didn't." he answers in a low voice, thick with fear. "You did." She narrows her eyes. _

"_You said that we still had our partnership! You said—you said you were moving on!" _

"_I never got your letter." he says hoarsely. "I thought you were leaving me. I didn't want to deal with that." More tears. More pain on her face. He hates that he's causing this. _

"_I wasn't." she says. "I wasn't." she repeats, as if to convince herself. "You say you didn't know I wasn't leaving, but you—you're here. Why are you here? The contract was for a year."_

"_You know me, Bones." he says sadly. "I wouldn't ever leave Parker for that long."_

"_So you left, because you thought I had left you?" He nods, and looks away from her. But Brennan lifts her hand up to his face, and pulls on his jaw, forcing his eyes back to hers. "Booth…" His body crashes into her, pulling her into a tight hug, the tightest she's ever been in. A few tears fall onto her shoulder, and she feels herself vibrate. He's crying._

"_I didn't want to leave you. I'd never—I'd never leave you. You were leaving me. You were leaving _me_." His voice cracks on the last word. _

One day she will be able to accept that she doesn't need to love the same as him, in every single way, one day she will learn that they are the same in the ways that are most important, in the ways that bound them together all those years ago.

"_Booth." she gasps. "Booth, you're crushing me. Your strength has obviously increased substantially training Rangers." He loosens his embrace, but doesn't break it._

"_I'm sorry." he whispers. "God, Bones, I am so sorry." _

"_Maybe if we had been talking." she offers, her voice right beside his ear. "You were so angry at me, Booth, for trying to leave. But I thought about it. I'm, I'm different now. I don't need to, to run. So I stayed here. I spend a lot of time with my father. We even went camping with, with Russ and Amy and the girls. I spent a lot of time applying lotion to my mosquito bites." Brennan smiles a little into her last sentence, trying to lighten the mood. But she's never been good at that._

"_For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart." he murmurs, after a few moments. "It was not my lips you kissed, but my soul." He smiles, and kisses her hair. She stiffens, but he moves from her shoulder and looks at her properly. _

"_Booth…That doesn't make any sense. You can't—you can't whisper into someone's heart, it's in the thoracic cavity. And souls don't—"_

"_Shh…" he tells her. "Every man is afraid of something. That's how you know he's in love with you; when he is afraid of losing you." She stares at him blankly. It's too hard to move, right now, completely trapped under his gaze. And she's missed him so, so much, the months without him. _

"_You can close your eyes to the things you do not want to see, but you cannot close your heart to the things you do not want to feel." Arms wrapped around each other. Noses close enough to touch. She cannot move, she cannot run. _

"_I love you not because of who you are, but because of who I am when I am with you." A tear rebelliously slides down her face, though she's been trying hard to keep them in her eyes. He reaches to wipe it off. His thumb lingers a second longer on her face, before settling back with the rest of his arm around her waist. _

"_A man content to go to Heaven alone will never go to Heaven." She doesn't believe in Heaven. She doesn't believe in divine retribution. But she believes in him, above all else. _

"_A man reserves his true and deepest love not for the species of woman in whose company he finds himself electrified and enkindled, but for that one in whose company he may feel tenderly drowsy." _

"_Where are you getting all of this?" she asks. But he just silences her with a finger to her lips. She shivers unconsciously. It isn't cold, in her apartment. _

"_Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires." Her feelings for him haven't diminished. They've grown stronger, harder to deal with. She had hidden within herself again. But he's here now. What is that going to mean?_

"_In love the paradox occurs that two beings become one and yet remain two." She couldn't believe that two could become one. And yet remain two? Her mind spins, faster and faster as he continues to speak. _

"_Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs." She recognizes this one. Shakespeare. _  
"_Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place." She's been hiding. Hiding from everyone; hiding from him, hiding from herself. _

"_Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within." His voice is much softer now, earnest, almost. Trying to convince her, of something. She lives within masks. She never takes some of them off. She just puts more and more on, exchanging one for another. The mask of indifference, the mask of science. It's what she knows. It's what she's always done, since love had left her the first time. The layers are only thicker now. And yet, he's peeling them all away now._

One day she will _know _what she feels towards him is love, and one day she will be able to say it to him.

"_The way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost." She doesn't want to lose him. And she knows, more than anything, that he can be lost. She had lost him, momentarily, over the summer. And now he was back. Back, telling her things she's never expected from him. And it's overwhelming. Because he had left her. Love wasn't strong enough. Love had no special hold over anyone. Love wasn't a thing that meant everything. _

_But here, now, him holding her, like if he loses her again… She knows what he had felt. The feeling of abandonment. _

"_We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person." Brennan has changed, Booth has changed, they've changed, together, because of each other. They are not the same people, meeting for an instant just long enough to leave an impression. What they have now isn't just an impression. It's a person. A soul. The other two legs, the other two arms, the other face. The other heart._

"_When love is not madness, it is not love." Soft brown now, no trace of the anger of before. Relief. She feels relief. She feels relief at her world not having crumbled after all. Booth is home. Booth had never wanted to leave._

"_When you're in love you never really know whether your elation comes from the qualities of the one you love, or if it attributes them to her; whether the light which surrounds her like a halo comes from you, from her, or from the meeting of your sparks." She grips him tighter. For some reason, she is scared. Of what, she does not know. But she feels the sensation of pulling again. But this time, it's towards him. Where she wants to be?_

"_Other men said they have seen angels, but I have seen thee, and thou art enough." But is she? She is broken, she is defective. She cannot understand his jokes, she cannot understand his phrases, she cannot even understand popular culture. She is a freak. How could anyone love a freak?_

"_Booth…" she says. And he sees the fear in her eyes. Knows that fear. _

"_Love never dies a natural death." he insists. "It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source." He's been there. He's been at the bottom, with nothing left in his life. He's seen men die in battle, clutching their memories, knowing that they had never told that woman that they loved her. "It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals." He can't move on. "It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings." And they've been there. He's become weary of hope and patience, she's been blind to who she is. _

_Has she discovered anything, without him? _

_Has she discovered that she can love, without destroying?_

"_I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you. I love you not only for what you have made of yourself, but for what you are making of me. I love you for the part of me that you bring out." He wants her to know, that he is better from having known her. Better because of Temperance Brennan. _

"_To be loved for what one is, is the greatest exception. T/he great majority love in others only what they lend him, their own selves, their version of him."_

"_Booth— This is too much." she tells him. She does not deserve this; she doesn't deserve him. _

"_No, Bones, it's not. It's not even close to being enough. I love you." Intake of breath, stiffen. _

One day.

_But he holds her all the tighter._

"_You were angry at me, for leaving." he says. And Brennan nods._

"_Yes." she whispers. _

"_Why?" _

"_I was right." she tells him. He blinks. "I was _right_." He sweeps a piece of hair out of her face, and she shivers again. It's not cold, in his arms. _

"_Everything I love leaves. That—that is a pattern I have observed. You left. I was right."_

"_You—you love me?" _

"Yes_." Brennan says. He was supposed to be the heart person. How could he have not known?_

"_You never said you loved me." He would have known. He would have known, if she loved him._

"_Neither did you." she replies. "You're not very clear sometimes."_

"_Hey, most people need a dictionary to decode what you're saying most of the time." _

"_I know." She sounds a little sad at this. A little ashamed. Because she isn't that woman. She's a scientist. "I'm, I'm very hard to understand sometimes. I'm not a normal person."_

"_I don't care." Booth tells her. He senses her shame. And now he senses that she doesn't feel like she's good enough for him. "I love you, everything that you are."_

"_I don't have your kind of open heart." Brennan says. "I don't. And I—I can't gamble on my ability to love." _

"_What would you be losing?" he asks her, even though he already knows the answer. Just so everything's clear. No misunderstandings. No secrets._

"_You." she whispers. "I would be losing you." _

"_And what makes you think we wouldn't work?" _

"_I—I don't know. But I don't _know. _Not like you."_

"_I don't _know_ either." he admits. "But I do know that if we don't try, then we'll spend the rest of our lives wondering, regretting."_

"_You can't know that either." she says, in a little laugh-sob. _

"_It's what I believe. And I know that you don't believe in God, or fate, or any of that stuff, but—"_

"_I believe in you." And that just breaks his heart a little more, the ways she says it. Brennan sounds so small right now, so afraid. No test for this. No test for love, no test for life._

"_I want to be with you, for the rest of my life. I can't imagine waking up and knowing that you aren't somewhere in this world. It was hard, thinking that—thinking that you had left me. But I knew that someday, I'd be able to find you again. I believe in fate, Bones. I always have, always will. I shouldn't have lost faith in us. I will wait as long as it takes, for you to be able to do this."_

"_I don't know if I can…" And she doesn't. There are five senses. Sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. And none of those tell her that she wouldn't break him. She already has. She could break him again just as easily._

"_You do have an open heart. The most open heart I've ever seen. You care so much that you have to pack it away, in the back of your head. That's how much you care. You care so much that you're will to sacrifice yourself for justice. That's an open heart. That's a good person."_

"_What about you, Booth? You're willing to embrace your emotions. You, you were willing to gamble for me."_

_Booth laughs a little. "That's what I know how to do, Bones. I'm a gambler. You're the scientist. How can we deal with things any other way? You need your experiments, your tests, your evidence, and I… I need my thrill. My risk. My payoff."_

"_None of those things worked for either of us, Booth."_

"_I know. That's why we need to figure it out together. I'm not asking for anything, Bones. Just… no secrets. We're partners. We're supposed to be open. And we never were."_

"_I'm sorry." Brennan tells him. And he smiles at her._

"_It's never been your fault."_

"_Or yours." she cuts in._

"_Or maybe we've both been looking at it the wrong way. I have to ask you a question."_

"_Alright." she says._

"_Am I, am I good enough for you?"_

"_Yes." she answers instantly. "More than good enough for me. You're a wonderful man, a good father, an exceptional agent. You're much more than I deserve."_

"_No." he tells her. "No, Bones, you deserve everything. You're good enough for me. More than enough. So much that I don't know how to handle you sometimes, but I wouldn't trade you for the world."_

"_That's a highly unlikely situation…" She smiles at him, to show that she's kidding. "I wouldn't either, Booth. Trade you for the world." she adds, just to make sure he knows that it's him she can't let go of. Not herself. That part is easy. She does it all the time._

_She's willing to give up her own happiness for him._

_Her life._

_Someone else's life._

_Temperance Brennan can't think of anything she wouldn't do to help him._

"_I'm going to go home. And you can talk to the Bureau, and make me your partner again, because I'm going crazy without you." She doesn't argue the logic of his statement. Because she feels she's been going crazy without him._

"_I will." _

"_And you can think all of this over. No secrets."_

"_No secrets." she repeats. No heartbreak, no sorrow. _

"_And you know why, Bones?"_

"_Because we're the centre." she tells him._

"_And the centre must hold." He kisses her lightly on the lips, so lightly that she's not sure he even did it, and walks out of the still open door. _

One day she will see all of the parts in the sum of the whole, and she will know that the parts summated to something larger than the individual pieces all stacked together without the elegance of what had happened between the two of them.

_They're walking together. They've become closer, since he had come back and they had opened every door that they knew how to open. But it's still not right. She's still afraid of herself. He's still afraid of losing. _

_It's sunset, after a case, one that was particularly nasty, and she's feeling more than a little frazzled. He's feeling more than a little bit in love with her. _

_Because once again, she had proven that she has a large capacity to feel compassion towards people, and her show of emotion earlier had broken his heart just a little bit more. It always crushed him, the rare times she reacted to a case badly. _

_It's around six o'clock, and while neither of them has had anything to eat since around eleven that morning, they're in no hurry to go to a restaurant, to sit down, to slow down and look at each other from across a poorly lit table. She feels a sense of intimacy. It feels like a special night, even though there's no particular occasion that day, no unusual events. He spots a bench, just a half block down the street, and thinks he might want to sit down on it, take a break from the all of the movement in their day._

_He's here now, with her, walking, as the light fades out of their half of the world and night threatens to tell them that maybe it's time they parted ways. He hasn't spent much time with her, on their own, after hours like this. Not even after they'd talked. Not even after no secrets. They've been busy. It's been a busy month._

_The couple (non-couple), reaches the bench and sits, Booth sitting close and yet too far from her. It's an unusual distance, one that makes Brennan feel disconcerted for a reason she can't quite place. It seemed that today she is experiencing a lot of things she can't quite define. Close, and yet far too far, that's what her partner feels like. Since that night. Since everything had started to happen. Maybe that's what she's feeling, the crescendo, the climax. _

_The sun set behind them. _

_His arm wouldn't be able to span the distance between them and wrap around her shoulders, she finally realizes. It makes her ache._

"_There is a quote," Brennan begins, after a silence that wasn't entirely comfortable. Beside her, Booth itches to move closer, for he, too, feels the wrongness in the space between them. Of course he does. He's the heart guy. He wants to put his arm around her, hold her close, breathe in the scent that is her shampoo and her lotion and her own special fragrance as they watch the streetlights grow brighter and brighter. He is so full of love for her, even after all of these months. Even after almost losing her. Love is omnipotent. Love means everything._

_He doesn't say anything, after hearing her hesitant voice. He doesn't turn to look at her, not completely, not like he wants to. His eye catches hers for a second, before moving on to the children running in ahead of their parents on the sidewalk in front of them._

"_There is a quote," she began again, actually making the effort to look at him this time. It's killing her, the way she feels like his arm belongs around her shoulders in this moment. His eyes are still chocolate brown to her, even in the fading light, and they're staring right into hers now. She remembers moments like this, and how quickly they ended them, how quickly things dissipated. The air feels charged now, and she feels the tell-tale signs of adrenalin flooding through her veins, though the situation doesn't appear to be one that calls for such a response. There's a weight on her, a weight that she cannot get off. It's been there for months. It's been there since that night. _

"_I've been thinking about this quote a lot, lately." she tells him, and she doesn't know why her voice is shaky, because she's just speaking her thoughts aloud. But she knows where her thoughts are going, and she's a little bit afraid of where they might take them. "No one knows who it's by, really, and it's not very well known, but my… my editor put it up in her office recently. It goes like… this may not be exact wording…" He's looking at her; he's looking at her, and seeing the fear in her eyes. He's seen this fear before. It had been there, when he had decided to take up an old habit again to see where it would take him. It had been there, when he had told her everything, about what he felt towards her, about what they had. He wonders why she's feeling it now, because he thought that this had just been a walk to wind down at the end of the day. But then again, he's been feeling something different about this day, too. Something in the air, something between the two of them._

"_What's the quote, Bones?" he asks softly, and yes, he does move closer to her now, but only because she's speaking softly too, and he feels like he needs to her every scared syllable of what she's about to say. Call it gut instinct, but he feels like this is important. What they've really been building up to._

"_We say we love flowers, yet we pluck them." she tells him, stopping to make sure he had heard her. She takes a breath, and he feels a thrill of excitement, of anticipation. There's something in her voice, in her eyes. He feels himself slip a little further in love. She's glowing a little in the lamplight. "We say we love trees, yet we cut them down." she continues, and it's _not_ just a trick of the light, that he sees some tears in her eyes. He watches her, never taking his eyes off of her, completely focused on the moment at hand. His heart beats faster. It's electric, the feeling between them now, and yet it's saturated with melancholy. He doesn't know what she's going to say next, but he thinks it might just end up being the most important thing in his life._

"_And yet," Her voice chokes a little, and he's sitting closer still, that arm on standby, just in case it's needed. "And yet, people still wonder why," And the arm is around her now, but she doesn't move. Doesn't break her stare with him. There's power in this moment, and they both feel it. Perhaps this is the moment they will catch fire. Perhaps this is the moment they'll pick up the tinder from their last failed attempt._

"_People still wonder why some are afraid when told they are loved." He doesn't break her stare with her either, even after she's made it clear that she's finished speaking. He wants to kiss her. He wants to kiss every broken little piece of her; he wants to kiss her until she knows that there isn't anything to be afraid of when it comes to his love for her, because he's never going to pluck her from her ground of logic and reason, he's never going to cut her down and leave her forever, he's going to love her and never change any part of the woman he's become entangled with. But he doesn't kiss her._

"_I've just— I've just been thinking about it." Brennan says, and now her face is a little more than wet, and the tears are reflecting in the lamplight, and this isn't how she wanted anything to turn out, after that night, when she had sacrificed her happiness for his. She had tried to prevent all of this sadness._

One day, she will see herself, and know that there is no one that the man would rather be with.

"_Bones…" he murmurs, and he doesn't know how his face had gotten so close to hers, but close it is now, close enough to close the distance and rest his forehead on hers. He almost does this, too, even more so than kissing her, but he doesn't._

"_You never told me you loved me, so I guess that quote doesn't exactly relate to us, but it's just… it's been on my mind."_

"_It's okay," he whispers to her, and he doesn't know why, because he's most certainly not okay, and he's pretty sure she isn't either. And they're not okay, that much has been proven. But perhaps 'it' is okay. Perhaps it's okay for her to feel this much emotion without a logical cause._

"_It's not that I don't want to learn to _know_ that I can love you for the rest of my life." He's able to decipher her statement, even though there were too many verbs, and too many 'what if's attached to it. "Because I do. I… I get scared, when I imagine life without you now, and that wouldn't have made sense, before, but… You've become part of who I am. I see that now. You've changed me. But you never said that you— that you wanted to help me know how to be someone… who could love you for that… thirty, forty, fifty years you deserve. And I wasn't that person, when you asked me to be. I'm not that woman."_

"_I never asked you to—"_

"_Yes, you did. When you asked me for a change, to give it a try… I knew what you wanted in a woman, in life, Booth. You wanted a family, a wife."_

"_I don't need those things, Bones. But I need you in my life."_

"_I know." she says in that quiet, reluctant voice. And now their foreheads do touch._

"_I love you, Bones." he says, and brushes a few tears off of her cheeks. "I know that I've told you before, but I should have told you…"_

"_After Sweets' book." she finishes for him. "I'm not someone people can love." she tells him. And maybe she's not._

"_Then people should learn to love better people." Booth says, and now she really cries. That's maybe the nicest thing anyone's ever said to her. She's lost track of the times that she's told herself that she wouldn't cry over him, and how many times that's become a lie. _

And she will know that there is no one else she would want to see him with.

_Brennan doesn't know why she keeps focusing on that stupid tie. She just knows that she wants to remove any sort of woman from his life. Maybe they would hurt him too. She doesn't want to see him hurt. And yet, she wants him to be happy. More than anything. More than her own happiness. Much, much more than that._

And on that day, when the man and the woman accept each other, accept who the other is and what they believe and how they see the world, they will…

"_Do you love me?" Temperance Brennan asks, naked beneath the man she loves. She knows the answer. She feels like she's always known the answer. _

"_Yeah." Seeley Booth answers. "Do you want me to prove it to you?"_

_He does._

_Several times._

Perhaps this will be the moment that fate happens.

Perhaps this will be the moment for everything to happen correctly, no tequila, no puckish prosecutors, no eager psychologists catalyzing desperation.

Just them.

"_Booth, I want to… I want to try." she whispers. "I want to try; I want to be able to gamble."_

"_I'll help you, Bones, and you know why?"_

"_Because you love me?"_

"_Yes." _

"_And you don't need me to _be_ anything?" She's felt like she's not good enough. But maybe now she doesn't need to be. Maybe they're enough, for each other._

"_Never, Bones. I don't want you to be anyone other than yourself. That's who I fell in love with. That's who I love now."_

"_I don't want you to change either." Brennan whispers._

"_I won't." Booth assures her. "Never." And he kisses her, on the bench, as the light continues to fade and the sun continues to set. _

_Love._

_The thing that means everything._

Man and woman, knowing the truth of each other, knowing what the other feels and wants and needs.

And not being scared by it.

Not wanting anything to change, because everything had fallen into its perfect place, and yes, maybe there isn't a perfect place for everything, maybe there is, but this sure as hell feels like it.

_Bliss. That's the only word she can use to explain this. Fully sated, covered in the man she loves. The blankets are too hot, the air too cold, but she feels like this is perfection._

This sure as hell feels like fate, and destiny, and everything the man believes in.

This certainly feels like faith and hope and love, and everything the woman had to let go of.

And that's where they've been going.

That's where the man and the woman have been moving towards.

His life has been about keeping the faith that has been shaken so many times.

Hers has been about gaining back the faith in goodness that she had lost.

And in the moment, when everything falls into place, the moment that is like the two moments before that just weren't right, they stop moving.

Because they've reached their destination.

And whether it was fate or chance that brought them to this final moment, there isn't anywhere else to go from there.

Because after a lifetime of straining to keep believing, the man has finally found peace in what he had known all along.

And after a lifetime of searching for something she told herself that she wasn't looking for, the woman has found peace in what she has learned to embrace.

There is no way of knowing if there is something beyond science.

There is no way of knowing if the powerful forces in our world that cannot be explained by facts are of something that cannot be measured.

There is no way to know if love is just chemicals, or if it something else entirely.

There is no way to know if fate or chance had brought these two people together.

But these two people, the man and the woman, they know one thing.

Now that they have found their moment, whether it was fate or chance, eternal, transcendent love or physiology, they are never going to leave.

Because now they can both see clearly the possibility for thirty, forty, _fifty_ years.

And the beginning of that journey starts at the end of their ignorance.

The beginning of their journey starts at the end of their control.


End file.
